Midland Counties Indoor Champs, NIA - 13/14 Feb 2010
Ellana shows youngsters the way as she retains 200m Title
The Midland Indoor Athletic Championships were held over 2 days at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham. This is a major chance for some of the members of Rugby & Northampton Athletic Club who participate in Track & Field in the Summer season, to gauge how their winter training is going. There were a number of successful results to report, and the most significant was that of Senior Ladies sprinter, Ellena Ruddock.
Ellena has now been competing since she was 14 years old, and now at the age of 34 years old, continues to defy her younger competitors. During that 20 year period, Ellena and her Coach, Roy Humphries, have seen Ellena reach National, European and Great Britain Selection. In that time she has reached 17 AAA Outdoor and Indoor Finals, and numerous Midland and County Titles. Ellena had in fact decided at the end of last season to give up Competitive athletics, but a change of mind in October meant that she decided to carry on for at least another season and also to support her Coach’s younger group and pass on her experience.
Ellena was in fact, last years Midland Indoor Champion at 200m, so that gave her the Incentive to once again to enter this years Midland Indoor Championship. So in the semi- Final, Ellena again showed her younger rivals that she still is a force to be respected, and she won in 25.19 secs. Then on to the Final 2 hours later, and another dominant performance once again winning the Midland Title by over 2 metres, in a season Indoors best time of 25.13 secs. To add to her delight, her training partner, Sophie Wright, finished 3rd in the U/20 Ladies final in 26.51 secs, having finishes 2nd in the semi-final in 26.44 secs. Her other young training partner, Tom Johnson, recorded an Indoors best time in the U/20 Mens 200m in 23.96 secs for 4th place in his heat.
There were several other successes. but no other Gold winners. Silver medals were won by Themba Luhana in the U/20 Mens 60m hurdles who recorded 8.29 secs, Katie Rowe in the U/17 Ladies Triple Jump with a leap of 11.06 metres, just one centimetre short of the ,Club record that she made the week before, Ross Allen in the U/20 Mens 400m where he recorded 50.29 secs, having finished second in his heat in 51.70 secs, and James Wright in the U/17 Mens 60m hurdles recording 8.44 secs. There were two bronze medallists, namely Charlotte Burrows in the U/20 Ladies 60m who recorded 8.04 secs, just beating fellow R & N AC athletes Sophie Wright by 0.02 secs. And Jasmin Webb her recorded 9.44 secs, and won her heat in 9.35 secs.
Other results
Senior Men
800m: Chris Lamb 1-56.59 secs
H. Jump: Andrew Reeves 1.75m
U/20 Men
60mH: James Eaton 8.60 secs
60m: Themba Luhana 7.33 secs
James Eaton 7.77 secs
U/20 Women
60mH: Charlotte Burrows 9.62 secs
Olivia Wetherill 10.03 secs
H.Jump: Olivia Wetherill 1.50m
60m: Emma Cluley 8.50 secs
U/17 Women
200m: Hannah Scales 27.80 secs
L.Jump: Hannah Scales 4.52m
U/15 Boys
400m: Adam Wright 59.85 secs
800m: Adam Wright 2-22.98 secs
U/15 Girls
L.Jump: Kirsty Dickenson 4.30m
Shot: Kirsty Dickenson 5.95m
H.Jump: Kirsty Dickenson 1.35m
