Nene Valley Harriers mix it with the best of British

The men made the short journey to Bedford for their British Athletics League Division Three fixture while the ladies were in Chelmsford competing in a UK Womens League Division Two match.

Both teams finished seventh out of eight clubs, but there were plenty of encouraging performances from young and older athletes alike.

Archie Rainbow finished runner-up in the 800m at Bedford in a time of 1:56.62 while Sean Garmory clocked 51.14 to finish second in the B 400m

Sam Wilson won the B hammer with a 40.71m throw and Tomi Ogunyoye achieved a new long jump PB of 5.85m.

Becki Hall and Lydia Church dominated the shot putt competition at Chelmsford winning the A and B competitions. Hall threw 12.00m while the 11.75m throw from Church would have placed her second behind Hall in the A competition.

Amber Park impressed with a 63.12 clocking in the B 400m while Poppy Tovey and Louise Alexander both set two new middle distance PBs. The pair ran 5:41.54 and 5:48.99 respectively over 1500m.

Emily Maltby had a particularly busy afternoon competing in the 100m, 100m hurdles long jump and 4x100m relay.

EASTERN MASTERS LEAGUE

Nene Valley’s most senior athletes were in vintage form on Wednesday as their men enjoyed a runaway win in their Eastern Masters League match at Corby.

Dave Brown and Julian Smith enjoyed a win double in the 200m. Brown, who also finished as runner-up in the 800m, won the Over 35 200m in 23.7 while Smith clocked 25.2 for his Over 50 victory.

The versatile Sean Reidy won all his three events, clocking 16.7 in the 100m hurdles and jumping 5.49m during his long jump victory. Reidy’s third first place was in the pole vault in which he cleared 2.70m.

Richard Phelan won the Over 50 pole vault with a 2.90m vault and clocked 20.90 for his 100m hurdles win.

Simon Achurch threw 35.47m to win the Over 35 discus and 11.43m for his shot first place.

Peterborough AC’s Duncan McGrorry had a fine run in the Over 60 800m with a winning time of 2:25.2.

Nene Valley ladies finished third out of six teams and with two fixtures to go have their work cut out to qualify for the end-of-season finals.

The Nene Valley athletes enjoyed some fine individual successes though with Lindsay Lister pulling off an Over 50 200m and 800m double. She clocked 33.4 over 200m and 2:47.5 in the 800m.

Team captain Claire Smith won the Over 35 200m in a time of 27.8 while Gemma Skells cleared 1.90m for her Over 35 pole vault success.

Andrea Jenkins won the Over 35 shot with a throw of 9.51m and the discus with a distance of 35.41m.

Peterborough AC’s Judith Jagger pulled off an Over 50 throws double with 8.54m in the shot and a discus throw of 24.54m.

Match result:

Men: 1st NVH 136ots; 2nd Corby 124pts; 3rd Ryston 113pts; 4th West Norfolk 110pts; 5th= Huntingdon 52pts; Peterborough 52pts; 7th Stamford 21pts.

Ladies: 1st Ryston 126pts; 2 Corby 121pts; 3rd NVH 88pts; 4th Peterborough 47pts; 5th West Norfolk 36pts; 6th Stamford 24pts; 7th Huntingdon 22pts.