Weekly Updates Saturday 30th May

Thanks again this week to all our club members and parents who are key workers and in other essential services, you are doing an amazing job! Click read more below for this weeks updates including results, volunteering, another physical challenge and our senior womens track & field dream team!

Results:

We have three virtual endurance events this week to report on.

Between the 23rd to 25th May was the Welsh Athletics virtual one mile challenge with five Swansea Harriers participating. Quickest was Gabrielius Stuokus (5.20) who was 42nd overall and 9th SM; followed home by M60 Ifan Lloyd (5.22) 43rd overall and 1st M60!! Daniel Morgan (5.23) 44th overall and 10th SM; Llinos Jones 67th overall and 1st W35!! And Millie Pierce (6.32) 143rd overall and 9th U13G. Well done all!

Between 22nd to 26th May was the British Milers club 1km challenge with just the one representative SM Guy Smith who ran a very quick (2.27) to finish 15th overall and 8th SM, well done Guy!

Run between 19th to 29th May was our own 2km club challenge, we were so happy to see 90 entries made not only from our endurance runners but also mums, dads, coaches and a few field eventers! In the end 60 submitted times which was still a great turnout. Thank you so much to everyone who took part, here are some usual and some alternative performances highlighted for you!

Fastest Overall Man: Ben Williams (6.02) followed by Steven Taylor (6.04) and Aled Tumelty (6.11).
Fastest Overall Woman: Hannah Kinane (7.05) followed by Llinos Jones (7.32) and Sophie Hartley-Green (7.47).
Fastest coach that’s not already an endurance athlete: N/A they were all ruled ineligible as all have plenty of experience at endurance! FYI the first two coaches with any athletics background home were Paul Flynn (7.12) and Andrew Griffiths (8.53).
Fastest trustee/committee member: Brian Fox (11.32) unfortunately did not live up to the pre race hype, as all the others were DNS!
Fastest field eventer Joseph Beresford (8.17) who would normally only run 8 strides to take off for high jump, followed by multi eventer Malachi Williams (9.19).
Fastest thrower: No entries!
Fastest mum that’s not a club member: Millies mum Cheryl Pierce (8.43) followed by Steffans mum Delyth Higgins (10.41).
Fastest dad that’s not a club member: Millies dad Dyfan Pierce (7.12) followed by Chloe & Sophies dad Peter Hartley-Green (7.22).
Fastest combined mother and daughter: Julie & Sophie Hartley-Green (16.19) followed by Julie and Chloe Hartley-Green (16.21).
Fastest combined mother and son: Tina Gabb & Matthew Lewis (17.36) followed by Rhian & Joseph Beresford (19.20).
Fastest combined father and son: Gerwyn & Aled Tumelty (13.47) followed by Gareth & Steffan Higgins (17.57).
Fastest combined father and daughter: Matt & Hannah Kinane (13.29) followed by Heath & Tabitha Ventress-Brett (18.29).

We were very impressed, and Talent ID letters have been posted and are making their way to all the mums and dads especially Cheryl, Delyth, Dyfan and Peter!
Thanks for the many messages keeping a very close eye and scrutinizing each others results. If we are still in lockdown at the end of June we’ll repeat the challenge for you, as its proved so popular. Remember this was just a little bit of lock down fun, if there is a next time, we will be politely requesting to try and follow the route guidance. Click here for the full results.

Additional Open Track virtual races have been added to our ever evolving annual fixtures page to enter, this page also tries to keep up with all the covid 19 cancellations and postponements for you.

National Volunteer Week:

1st to 7th June is UK Volunteer Week. The club is extremely lucky having well over 120 regular volunteers among our coaches, officials, team managers, trustees and café team, all of whom are equally worth their weight in gold, we could not cope without any of them, so a very close call to single anyone out. If you’d like to be part of our volunteer team please get in touch and we will get you involved. There will be changes when we return to training, therefore it is highly likely we will require additional support at club nights, specific detail will be released when we are given the go ahead to resume at the track. In the meantime if you feel you’d like to nominate any of our volunteers you can do so via this link.

Next Challenge:

For our junior members (seniors are more than welcome too!) this week we recap back a couple of weeks to the Athletics 365 challenges. This time we’d like the athletes to try two of the challenges, specifically Section 1 to test your static balance, core and postural control, and Section 9 to test your agility, reaction and response. All you need to do is watch the instructional videos by scrolling down this link. Depending on what your favourite events are, you can see plenty of other videos to select challenges from, many of which you can adapt to home, for all running, jumping and throwing disciplines.
All our UK Athletics qualified coaches can now also get free access to download the latest version of the resource onto their mobiles or I pads, click here for details.

Annual Membership Renewals:

Please support the club, when we try to regrow and rebuild the club on its eventual return, can all those members that are yet to renew their annual membership, are encouraged to do so; you can print a renewal form here ready for when training recommences. Hopefully we will be not too far away in 6 or 9 weeks from now, dependant on Welsh Government, Welsh Athletics and Swansea University specific guidance and restrictions for our club.

Senior Womens Track & Field Dream Team:

Following our 6th May article on the seniors road relay teams, we indulge ourselves again, for our second dream team of the 2020 lockdown, where we select what we consider to be our greatest Senior Women’s League team. What an embarrassment of riches we had to select from over the years! Therefore, to try to make selection somewhat more straightforward, the team has been chosen based on the known highest rankings and also the performances of the club Senior Women’s Record holders who are mainly our A string competitors.

Only athletes who have competed for the club in the UK Women’s League have been included. Swansea Harriers has been a member of this League since 1994. With standards rising over the years, had we considered athletes from pre 1994 the team composition most likely would be unchanged.

The team composition is a balance of about 50% of the team who are still active competing members of the club, and 50% of former retired members. It was pleasing to note that 10 started as members of the club at the age of 13 or under and stayed in the club all the way through to the senior age group,  8 possibly joined Swansea as it is the nearest club with a team in the U.K. Women’s League, 5 others are Welsh qualified athletes, 5 are from English clubs, 2 were Swansea University students and 1 moved to live in the City.

We can proudly say that the team contains three Olympians. Andrea Whitcombe competing in the 5000m in Sydney, Australia in 2000 who was also a Bronze medallist competing for England in The Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998. Philippa Roles competed in two Olympics in Athens, Greece in 2004 and Beijing, China in 2008. She finished 4th in The Commonwealth Games in 2002 and 2010 and also in The European Under 23 Championships in 1999 and was very disappointed to finish so close to medal. Philippa had however gained a Bronze Medal previously in The European Junior championships of 1997. Hayley Tullett competed in the Olympics in Athens, Greece in 2004 and in Beijing, China in 2008. She performed outstandingly to gain a Bronze medal in the 1500m in The World Championships in Paris, France in 2003. In the Commonwealth Games she won a Silver in Manchester in 2002 and a Bronze in Melbourne, Australia in 2006. There are a good number of athletes as you can see by the stars by their names that have also represented Great Britain. As well as the three above; Hannah Brier, Caryl Granville, Rachel Johncock, Caryl Jones and Elinor Kirk have represented Wales in The Commonwealth Games.  Most of the team have gained national recognition either at Schools, Junior or Senior level.

The Relay teams are all first claim members and therefore would qualify for lowering the club records in both events. These stand at 48.5(4x100m) and 3mins 40. 94 (4x 400m). Adding up their best times which total 46.37 and 3mins 34.04 they should be in with a very good shout, if they can get the baton round safely.

However, there are a few exceptions. Hayley Tullett holds the club record for 800m, 1500m and 3000m, but could not be expected to do more than two events in one day and goes in both the 800m and 1500m which are well spaced out. Likewise, Phillippa Roles has a best performance of (55.09m) in the Hammer, but is left to concentrate on her main two events of Discus and Shot. Sian Morgan who holds the club record for the Pole Vault has not been included as she has not competed in the U. K. Women’s League as she has been living in the U.S.A.  Laura Maddox who holds the club record for the 400m has been included in her other event the 800m and Charlotte Rees misses out on inclusion in the Javelin having not been available for the senior league to the best of our recollection. Two Higher Claim athletes who are not eligible for club records have been included, Mollie Courtney claiming the A spot in the 100m Hurdles on a superior time with club record holder Caryl Granville switching to the B. In the Long Jump both Imelda Morrison and Higher Claim athlete Emily Thomas have the same best performance.

Who do we make team captain, this was the hardest decision of all! There have been 7 absolutely superb Captains of the UK Women’s League Teams, with a varying number of years in office.
Jayne Fisher 3, Non Evans 3, Kathryn Evans 2, Louise Whitehead 2, Anna Leyshon 6, Sian Davies 7 and Caryl Granville 4.
All have been tremendous contributors to the club as have many others who would no doubt feature regularly in teams, and always do a superb job. However as only two have made the selection based on rankings, we have chosen the one with the most years in office and the present holder Caryl Granville as Captain, and Louise Whitehead as Vice Captain.
No doubt there will be some who will disagree with some of the team selections, but hopefully not too many.  The present lockdown has proved that there are currently more selectors of sports teams in Wales than there are participants! We hope you enjoyed this read and below is our full dream team, and what a team this would be!

100m Hannah Brier** (11.39) R & Rachel Johncock*(11.45)

200m Hannah Brier**(23.59) R & Rachel Johncock*(23.74)

400m Louise Whitehead**(53.34) & Olivia Caesar (53.45)

800m Hayley Tullett*(2.00.49) R & Laura Maddox* (2.03.86)

1500m Hayley Tullett*(3.59.95) R & Verity Ockenden*(4.12.26)

3000m Andrea Whitcombe*(8.58.59) & Elinor Kirk (9.02.11)

2000m Steeplechase Caryl Jones*(6.39.35) R & Olivia Gwynn (7.09.56)

100m Hurdles Mollie Courtney***(13.28) & Caryl Granville**(13.48) R

400m Hurdles Caryl Granville**(56.59) R & Bethany Kennedy (57.65)

Long Jump Imelda Morrison (5.96m) R & Emily Thomas (5.96m)

High Jump Ceri Stokoe (1.79m) R & Mollie Courtney***(1.76m)

Triple Jump Sian Swanson (11.98m) R & Macey Jones (11.90m)

Pole Vault Lyndsey Maund (3.90m) & Carys Jones (3.72m)

Shot Philippa Roles*(15.62m) R & Sally Hinds (14.90m)

Discus Philippa Roles* (61.41m) R & Rebecca Roles***(56.25m)

Hammer Toni Wells (55.81m) R & Zoe Dakin (50.56m)

Javelin Claire Williams (46.19m) R & Emily Cockrill (43.36m)

4 x 100m Relay Hannah Brier (11.39); Rachel Johncock (11.45), Angharad James (11.90) & Risquat Fabunmi- Alade (11.63)

4 x400m Relay Louise Whitehead (53.34), Anwen Rees (54.50), Olivia Caesar (53.45) & Laura Maddox (52.75)

G.B. Vests- Senior *  Under 23**   Under20***.
Letter R after performance denotes Club Record and Holder for that event.