Sevenoaks Athletics Club 
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Both the SAC women and men lie third in their divisions after the second match of the SCVAC track and field league on Friday 25th May. Highlights were Pauline Dalton's win in the W50 100m and Sylvia Lewis' victory in the W60 Javelin
The second meeting of the Southern Counties Veterans Athletics league Kent Division was a great success for Sevenoaks Athletics Club, adds Grazia Manzotti.
Let's start with the ladies. The ladies for the first time for SAC had a full team and we finished in second place! Jenny Austin was third in the 100m, with a fine time of 19.8 secs, and third in the 800m. Sylvia Lewis was first in the W60 javelin with a W65 club best performance of 6.97m (ranking her currently 10th in the UK), and, even though she ended up in the wrong race for the 100m, she was second M60 over that distance, and third in the W35B 800m in 4:20.5, another club best performance! Nicki Thompson was second in both shot put and the javelin, only 1cm short of the club best performance in the latter (and 22nd in this year's W40 UK rankings)! Pauline Dalton continues to set club bests. She was first in the W50 100m in 18.3 secs, no SAC W50 has been faster, and second in the 800m, taking nearly 11 seconds off the club's previous W50 best performance. And this was after a 5km race earlier in the day! The ladies team was also second in the relay and their time ranks as a club 4 x 100m W40 club best, so every member of the team achieved at least one club best performance. Amazing success for the ladies and they also said it was good fun!
The men did great, too, filling every event on the programme.
Neil Haggertay made his debut as fourth in the M35B 100m, and fifth in the 800m against tough competitors. He did also the shot put, against the background of last call for the relay, and was fourth – - in all, a total of 11 individual points for the club. Graham Dwyer also joined the team for the first time and was fourth in the M35A 100m, our fastest man on the night. He also achieved fourth place in the 800m and sixth in the javelin.
Geoffrey Kitchener was fourth in the M35 high jump, a tactical age category allocation to maximise the points of Rob Peers, who jumped in the M50 event, and secured second place with 1.25m. Geoffrey was also third in the M60 100m. Duncan Cochrane ran in the M50 100m for sixth place and also achieved fifth in the M50 800m and third in the M60 shot putt. Keith Dowson was second in the M50 shot putt and fourth in the javelin, worth 25th place in the current UK rankings. A relay team of Neil, Graham, Duncan and Geoffrey (pictured below) brought the baton home in fourth place, which was also the men's overall position on the night, although we are lying third in the series so far. So, this was a solid performance from the men to add to the ladies' success.
The next meet will be on 15th June in Friday 15th June at Bromley. There will be a call for teams nearer the date.
The full results are here.
I was team manager at this first meeting of the season Geoffrey being on holiday, writes Grazia Manzotti. I can say it wasn't my most successful evening, but after few days I can possibly see the positives and the funny side of it.
Let's celebrate success first. For the first time in years SAC had a ladies team. The ladies did very well, it was a debut for all of them. Sylvia Lewis won the W60 1500m in 8:29.2, amazing achievement, and she also did the W50 200m in 56.04 secs. It was the first time on the track ever for Sylvia and she won a race as well as achieving 12th place in the UK W65 rankings and setting W65 club bests in both her events! Pauline Dalton
was also first time racing on the track, and was third in her 1500m race, W35, in 6:14.9, shattering the club W50 best performance by over 20 seconds. She was also third in her 200m race at W50 in 37.3 secs, ranking 24th in the UK this year and taking over four seconds off the club best performance, a remarkable success. As for Grazia Manzotti, well I think I did well in my 200m with 36.9 secs first time ever and I am not a sprinter (although Geoffrey tells me this race ranks me 32nd in the UK for my age group); let's not talk about my 1500m where for the first time ever it was DNF.
The SAC men, mostly more experienced, did really well. Paul English won the 200m M35 with an impressive 25.9 secs (pictured above), currently 19th in the UK rankings; Duncan Cochrane was 3rd M60 in the 1500m with 5:56.9, Dan Witt was 4th M35 in the 1500m with 5:18.8 amazing time and I believe a PB. Keith Dowson was 3rd M50 in the 1500m with 5:45.8, and 6th in his 200m race because he pulled his hamstring. Colin Tester was 4th in the M50 200m, a newcomer to track events, but achieving a very respectable 32.7 secs. Also the SAC men did plenty of field events with great results:
Paul English was 2nd in the M35 discus with 21.33m, close to his 2016 club best.
Keith Dowson: 5th in the M50 discus with 14.54m, which looks to be a PB.
Duncan Cochrane: 3rd in the M50 long jump with 3.35m.
Also Colin Tester did the long jump but this performance has been missed out of the results and we hope it will go in, adding a couple more points to the club score.
A few things went wrong, horrid traffic getting to Ashford, three of the guys got injured, as Keith Dowson put it in one of his emails this happens when you try and get old people sprinting! My 1500m race, a bit of a mess with the numbers and problems with our results. The ladies didn't have enough ladies for a relay and the men had to pull out of their relay because of injury.
Overall, both men's and ladies' teams are standing 4th in the division 2 meeting and series.
Next race Friday 15th in Tonbridge, more details on emails, I am sure it was such fun that we want do it all again! Can we please have enough ladies for a relay.
See links to the videos here (thanks to Mark Pitcairn-Knowles for agreeing to share the videos and for the photos too), and the results (subject to expected updating) here.
David Lobley won the May handicap race and now leads the series on tiebreak. Full details here.
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