Written by NTMO
On a warm but windy day which favoured the field eventers,but harrassed those on the track,2nd place was a reasonable result and one which places us in mid-table with two matches to go - one at Home,and the other just along the coast from Lewes,at Eastbourne. Full results and table - www.southernathletics.org.uk
Loic Malroux was Man of the Match,retrospectively
Womens Club Captain Pippa Wingate led by example and was clearly our best female athlete at Lewes,winning her speciality HT,though again, at 49.11,frustratingly short of her intended 50m+ target and her 50.83pb,plus SP & DT. TM Clare Nelson(7) and Harriet Lester(6) were gallantly all over the arena in search of points as well as entertaining the punters in the Steeplechase(sadly without any water!). Lauren Edwards,Laura Cook,Nicky Atkins,Natalie Sacre,Caroline Jeffcote and Clare McLeish were also beavering away,mostly having to forlornly fight the semi-hurricane in the home straight.
One feature of the Mens match was a friendly multi-eventing contest between Loic Malroux,Andy Wheble and Bilen Ahmet,and the "All Our Yesterday's" pairing of Nick Owen and Mark Roberts - the latter two were the catalyst for much of our SML,and then BAL,success in the last 15 years or so - it was a delight to recapture the moments. Mark equalled our Vets Club records in the PV(3.40) and HJ(1.50) - and was only 1cm shy of John Ratcliff's LJ,too. Nick's kamakazi PV was/is always too good to miss!! That quintet collected large shares of our 190+ points,as well as grabbing PBs and SBs,but there were others coining them - father and son Philip Bearman race-trained over 5000 and the waterless 2k Steeple,with the former also flirting with a 1500 - for extra training!;Patrick Hillyer and Maris Kuklis also took maximums and Nikolaj Schubert,TM Gordon Lester,Jason-Louis Bernard,Zain Rawji and Adam Bellis added their full poundsworths.
Loic Malroux won the Man of The Match Award(6.49 LJ) to join Jordan Smith-Bent whose 11.0 100m at Bromley at M1 took similar honours.
Many thanks,too,to our full complement of travelling officials who included Tony Cook,Pat Logan,Mike May,Robin Wingate,Geoff Owen and David Hillyer,as well as the busy Clare.
