BUCS outdoors 2018 proved to be another hugely successful weekend of championship athletics for BUAC. A weekend of wall-to-wall sun produced medals, club records and a man wearing a hat; summarised by Luke Gunn below.
800 Mari Smith GOLD 2.03 (PB) and only .03 away from the championship record!!
Mari was the star of the day for BUAC (no easy feat) as she won her main event in style, and then came back to anchor the relay team in a stunning 54.9 split!!
400H Elisabeth Clifford SILVER 59.47, making it back-back days for a PB’s and stunning some very strong opposition. As well as splitting an amazing leg of the relay too.
1500 Megan Davies SILVER matching last years result in a very physical and competitive race with an incredible equally exciting sprint finish that nearly snatched the win.
5000 Jonathan Davies SILVER making it 4 medals in 4 years at these champs in against very strong competitors.
Toby Cooke backed up his 10k GOLD last week with 2nd in B race in another PB. Laura Gent a very credible 4th in B race & Jessica Keene ran a new PB, all in incredibly hot conditions for distance running.
110H Jake Porter BRONZE making it 4 medals in 2 years for BUAC at these champs whilst Michael Bowler improved on his time from the heats for 8th in the same final, adding to his fine BRONZE yesterday in the Pole Vault. Bot done there he then ran leg 1 of the men’s 4x100 relay today too.
400 Jack Hocking 5th 47.5 (PB), super fresher Jack managed to PB again today, before then masterfully competing in both of the record breaking relays splitting a 47.2 in the 4x400 in his last of a stunning 6 races in the weekend!! Give that man a lemonade.
Steeplechase Ella Shirley 5th 7.01 (PB) a superbly timed run from a newbie at the event, taking 15 seconds of her PB in the process.
Equally Mark Pearce 4th 9.02 (PB) took 30s of his PB - set on Saturday in the heat - and become the first man ever to wear a bucket hat during an athletics race. What a debut.
MarkyP:
“Coach is it better to work on my brand, or focus on serious racing?”
Coach:
“I don’t believe both need to be mutually exclusive”
MarkyP:
“Right”
Backed up by fellow debutant Sergio Argul who also smashed his PB with 9.39 for 12th.
Shot Luisa Chantler 5th 12.30 threw over 12m for the first time at the right time to score valuable points in her lesser preferred event.
Whilst we had history in the Discus, where we had no less than 3 women in the top 8: Sam Milner 6th, Simone Mcken 7th & Luisa 8th - we are pretty sure this is the first BUAC have ever had 3 athletes this high in a field event. Awesome!
Leaving everyone’s favourite the relays:
Men’s 4x400 BRONZE 3.13.27 (Club record) Medals for Freddie Owsley, Tor Bennett-williams, Mark Cottam, Jack, Ryan Lowe & Luke Jones - with a master stroke from Capt Matt to rest Ryan Lowe from the individual 100m to get him a club record (4x100) and a medal in the 4x400 relay instead 🤭.
Women’s 4x400 SILVER 3.45.8 stunning runs from all 5 girls (including Sabrina in the heats) and throughly deserved medals for all: Harriet Olivia Cooper, Charlotte Orton, Sabrina Sinha, Mari and Lizzie.
Men’s 4x100 (6th) 42.37 (Club record) silky smooth exchanges without a specialist 100m runner between them and they still nick the Club record - brilliant!
*not forgetting the excellent BRONZE from Emma Houchell & 6th place from Louisa Whittingham in the 10,000m last week, which counts to these Champs!
In summary:
10 medals (2 GOLD, 4 SILVER, 4 BRONZE) 19 top 8’s 26 finalists 3 club records
Very very nice work everyone.
Thank you so much to Matt and Kat for their organisation before and enthusiasm for the whole weekend.
Special thanks too to Martin, Dominic and Matt for supporting on all 3 days. As well as Jonny for his help on social media all day today.
And thank you to everyone who came down to support (and tan), I hope the whole club has been inspired by the performances this weekend - the club is making steps forward all the time