Report for 9th February

                                                 ATHLETICS A BUSY SATURDAY

 Outstanding performances by three of the seven Banbury Harrier girls in the under thirteen section of the Southern Region Sports Hall athletic final at Burgess Hill on Saturday was not good enough for the county team to make the national final in April.

 The day started well with victory in the obstacle relay this was created with a first solid leg by the versatile Emily Thompson handing over to Tory Harte inches behind the Kent runner. Harte then destroyed the other six teams with pulsating speed over the bounce and hurdles to leave her remaining two team members an easy run to capture first place.

 Harte followed this up capturing a bronze medal in the individual speed bounce, this from one of the youngest girls in the competition.

 Thompson again produced a second outstanding performance in the 6lap time trials. When she ran in the first of two heats and went from the gun into the lead. She took with her the Hampshire and Surrey runner and they soon opened a large lead at three laps. Into the final lap and Thompson held a narrow lead off of the final turn the Surrey girl squeezed in front the three crossed the line with Thompson in second place and the trio easily faster than the second heat.

 Abbey Anson may have not picked up a medal but also had an excellent day when finishing 4^th in the vertical jump and 5^th in the final of the 2lap races.

 The other four girls also performed well Paige Cooper 5^th in the shot also in the same position Evie Hawkins in the standing long jump. Then Rebecca Scott finished 6^th in the high jump and also Helen Dubber 8^th in the speed bounce.

      The boys equivalent Felix Noble finished 8^th in the vertical jump and Jordan Dunn 10^th in the shot. In the under fifteen age group Alfie Rowett gave solid performances in all of his three events and Jess Lay produced an excellent speed bounce in hers.

   Kyle Ennis took part in The Midland Indoor Athletic Championships also on Saturday in the seniors 200metres. He ran his heat in a time of 22.67seconds to reach the final. In the final in ran marginally slower in 22.82seconds but this was good enough for a bronze medal.

 Also on Saturday it was the final Apex Chiltern Cross Country league fixture at Wing. Ros Kelling in the ladies fixture finished in 6^th place and easily collected the leagues overall veteran title. She gained excellent support from Rebecca Biegel in 31^st place and Lisa Ansell in 34^th place.

 In the senior man’s race Tim Wright finished in 7^th place and Tom Offord in one place and five seconds behind. Three others ran Simon Pritchard 20^th place, Lewis Dorman 39^th place and Geoff Smith in 100^th place.

 In the younger age groups Tom Biegel finished 7^th in the under seventeen boys race, Gregor Kelling 9^th in the under fifteen boys race and in the under thirteen girls race Tia Williams finished in 12^th place.