Weekly Update Tuesday 9th March

There are a few exciting results to round up this week for you, including an unprecedented two Bronze medals at the European Indoor Athletics Championships for the club, as well as updates on recognition of four of our female coaches and an interview with our club vice president Nigel Jones.

Results:

From Thursday 4th march to Sunday 7th March were the 36th European Indoor Athletics Championships held in Torun, Poland. Swansea Harriers had the honour of two of its athletes representing the Great Britain & Northern Ireland team.

On Saturday Joseph Brier making his senior GB debut was drawn in a tough heat in the 400m against the former World & European indoor champion from the Czech Republic, Pavel Maslak. Joseph acquitted himself magnificently only just being overtaken in the last 20m to place 3rd in his heat in 47.08 and just miss out on a place in the semi final. Then on Sunday 7th March he ran the lead off leg in the 4 x 400m final helping the team to a superb Bronze medal performance in 3:06.70! Very many congratulations to Joseph on this fine achievement! Click here for the full results.

Thursday Verity Ockenden in the 3000m was the fastest qualifier for the final in a time of 8:52.60 running a great tactical race. Then in Fridays final she kept us all on the edge of our seats in a thrilling race and especially the last 100m where in a dip finish any sprinter would of been proud of she won a Bronze Medal and set a lifetime best of 8:46.60! What a magnificent achievement against the very best distance runners in Europe, well done Verity! Click here for the full results.

Saturday 6th March three of our elite senior men were given the opportunity to race in an invitation only 10,000m track race in Newport where Kristian Jones finished 2nd and set an impressive time of 28:33.17 for his track lifetime best, his time was so quick it took him to 10th on the Welsh All time track 10,000m rankings and just 3 seconds away from the qualifying time for the 2022 Commonwealth Games! Dewi Griffiths finished 3rd in an awesome time too of 28:45.72. Unfortunately the equally talented Joshua Griffiths did not finish the race, but we will see him back to his very best soon with Dewi on 26th March in Kew Gardens for the British Olympic Marathon trials. Click here for the full results.

From Friday 5th to Sunday 7th March inclusive was the Welsh Athletics virtual 2 mile challenge where more of our superstars were in action not just in Torun & Newport! The club recorded 19 finishers across all age groups. In descending order here are their results; Ifan Lloyd M60 11:01 and first in his age group!; Matt Kinane M50 11:18 and also first in his age group!; Michael Gleeson M45 11:30; Thomas Guest M55 11:30 and our third athlete to win the age group! Daniel Morgan SM 11:33; Owen Davies M45 11:34; our fastest junior was Millie Pierce U13G 12:23; Brian Stevendale M55 12:32; Heath Brett 13:15; Joshua Pritchard U15B 13:20; Matthew Lewis U15B 14:04; Julie Hartley-Green W45 14:05; Steffan Higgins U15B 14:31; Jenny Mcadie W40 15:10; Tina Gabb W45 15:46; Imogen Mcadie U13G 16:47; Tony Clements M70 17:00 and Natalie Coughlan U15G 17:19. Very well done to them all on their times, click here for the full results. Next up for them and anyone else whose interested is the 3 mile challenge from this Friday 12th to Monday 15th March inclusive, to enter click this link.

Welsh Athletics Female Coaching Campaign:

Congratulations to our very own Judith Gooding, Wendy Slade, Lynne Brier & Gwennan Lewis. All four applied and have all been accepted onto the new Welsh Athletics Female Coaching Campaign, this is aimed at;
• Celebrating the achievements of our female coach and leader community.
• Encouraging and supporting more female coaches to not only get involved in coaching, but to progress on their coaching journeys in Athletics.
• Creating a platform to access to a positive and inclusive support network.

Nigel Jones Interview:

Our club vice president and 2020 award winning off track official of the year Nigel Jones was interviewed about his time to date volunteering in athletics. Nigel has been a great servant to the club and sport of athletics, and is full of interesting anecdotes. You can watch the video on YouTube here and read some more of his stories here!