Great success came the way of several local Stockport Harriers at the English Schools combined events championships at Telford with the the under 15’s girls making a clean sweep of podium finishes with star billing going once more to Emily Misantoni who rounded off her gruelling day of five events in the pentathlon with a scintillating 2:17 posting in the 800 metres event.
Coaching coordinator Joe Frost was justifiably proud of his young charges and gushed with enthusiasm: “For the second year in a row, Stockport coaches produced more county athletes for Greater Manchester than all the other local clubs added together and it is an excellent sign of the strength of the multi – events coaching and development from within the Harriers at Woodbank park”.
The remaining podium finishes in the girls’ under 15’s pentathlon along with Misantoni in first spot, were taken by Abigail Pawlett (2nd) and a highly deserved bronze medal by Daisy Worthington in 3rd whilst Amy Battle who went in the high jump competition, produced a great leap of faith to finish with a clearance and new personal best of 1.43 metres and will continue to do well next season and remains in the under 15’s age group for 2018 which will help to increase her medalling prospects in the future.
Too many athletic events and not enough to cram them all in was the result as Team Stockport spread it’s resources between the Schools events in Telford and the Youth development league upper age group at Victoria park, Warrington which resulted in several events for all the competing clubs not being contested.
However both the boys and girls rallied to the cause and particularly for the boys with several doubling and trebling up in events and more so and so it was for Euan Benson in the under 20’s event who went in no less than four different field events and came second in the “A” string in all of them being the shot, discus, hammer and javelin.
Over on the track in the under 17’s department, Stockport’s Emilio Ramirez made it a double win in the 100 and 200 metre “A” sprint events with times of 11.5 and 23.6 respectively and he then went on to help his colleagues by adding valuable points in the shot put arena with a best put of 10:81 to record a win for the “A” string competition with all the three aforementioned activities registering an AAA standard for his efforts.
For the girls, Katy Whiteoak and Hannah Richardson showed who’s boss in the under 20’s middle distance events with wins in the 1500 metres (4.53.6) and 3000 metres (10.55.6) respectively and at the shorter distances of both 200 and 300 metres, Stockport’s Natasha Harrison made it a double first in the “A” string and there was also a double first in the under 17’s long jump with Bethan Murray taking the “A” event with ease (5.17) and in the “B” event Catherine Giller made easy work of her discipline to finish in a distance of 5.11 metres before providing support to her 4 x 100 metre team mates to finish the one lap circuit with a win for the team in a total time of 53.4 seconds.
Team Stockport eventually finished in 3rd spot out of 8 teams and will go into the last match at Blackpool on 23rd July with a three point margin with 22 accumulated match points to currently top the leader board but there will be no safety until all is completed at Stanley park with next placed Lancaster and Morecambe and also Leigh Harriers jointly on 19 match points after three events.
The annual Offerton 10 kilometre road race marked the turning point in the weather with sweltering conditions half an hour or so before the event but the heavens opened in time for the race start but this did not dent the splendid run of Mat Stephenson from Marple runners who accomplished the three lap circuit with ease to finish in 37 minutes and 25 seconds opening up a massive gap on second placed Stephen Crook of Stockport who finished in 38:12 and third finisher Paul Brooks (38:38) also from the host club.
Some would have noticed that times were slower this year probably on account of the slippery conditions going down Vernon park hill but life certainly began at 40 with no less than eight of the first nine positions being filled by veteran athletes and this was followed on by the Junior one mile race which produced a double win for family Murdoch with Cameron coming home first in 6:12 and his sister Freya first in the girls race and 5th overall in 6:31, further Stockport high end results came the way of 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions filled by Harry Ahearn, Henry Pickard and Josh Garrone.
Stockport’s Steve Vernon led his fellow competitors in a “merry song and a dance” at the annual Whaley waltz fell race in conjunction with the Whaley bridge rose queen carnival in beating his nearest rival Chris Donnelly of Sale by the best part of three minutes and brought the course record down by a full minute to 35 minutes and 21 seconds and that included time to spare to entertain the crowd with a cartwheel into the river Goyt prior to completing the just shy of 6 miles course with a total elevation of 899 feet.