Reports

The 2014 Club Grand Prix competitions have now concluded and the final tables are here. In summary the results are:

Track & Field Grand Prix

First	Geoffrey Kitchner	270.6 points
Second	Keith Dowson	241.3 points
Most Improved	Martin White	6.7 point improvement

For the twelfth year in succession Geoffrey Kitchener is the winner of the Track & Field Grand Prix and well clear of Keith Dowson in second place. Once again Geoffrey has shown himself to be dominant in the sprint distances with 90%+ WMA scores over 60m indoors, while Keith has produced some excellent performances over middle and longer distances in the SCVAC League during the summer. Martin White challenged Keith strongly for second place, just 0.7 points behind, but did record the best improvement on the previous year to win the Most Improved category.

Individual Road Race Grand Prix

First	John Denyer	499.7 points
Second	Chris Desmond	491.7 points
Third	Keith Dowson	487.5 points
Most Improved	Suzy Claridge	68.2 point improvement

This year for the first time we have seen the top four runners all scoring consistently in the 80%+ range so the competition has been keen. Having returned to fitness in the late summer John Denyer came through in the late part of the year to finish in first place. Chris Desmond had another excellent year to finish second for the second year and with an overall score that would have won the competition last year. Keith Dowson was third, also with a score that would have won last year. In the Most Improved category Suzy Claridge recorded an impressive improvement of 68.2 points over her 2013 score to win comfortably. Dan Witt also recorded an improvement of 33 points which exceeded his winning score of 31.2 last year in this category to underline his rapid progress over the last two years.

Team Grand Prix

First	Chris Desmond Andy Nicoll Another	433.0 points
Second	John Stevens James Wright Peter Dillon	429.9 points

As most of you will know the GP Teams are drawn "out of the hat" from three seeded groups based on highest GP scores in the previous year with the aim of achieving the closest competition over the year. The competition has indeed been close this year but the team of Chris Desmond, Andy Nicoll and Another showed their alround quality to finish top of the table but were pushed all the way by John Stevens, James Wright and Peter Dillon who finished just 3.1 points behind. We will shortly be drawing the teams for 2015 so look out for the details.

Jim Knight enjoyed Geoff Kitchener's sprinting masterclass on April 21st. "He was really informative and very impressive in his own technique", said Jim.

Geoffrey Kitchener Geoff coaches Marc Thatcher Geoff demonstrates starting

The national championships were held at Derby on the weekend after this meeting. Sevenoaks AC was represented by two athletes, Richard Pitcairn-Knowles and Geoffrey Kitchener. It was also good to see former member June Johnson taking silver in the W65 race, beaten only by a world record performance.

Richard put on an impressive display of versatility. Not only did he achieve second place in the M75 5000m race (and fourth place in the national rankings), despite being at the older end of his age category, but he also contested distances at 1500m, 400m and 200m, finishing the last of these with a club best M75 performance of 40.92 seconds.

Geoffrey also ran the 200m race, but in the M60 category, coming second in the B final with 28.47 seconds (sixth overall in the aggregated A and B finals). His other events were the high jump (fourth with 1.30m), 100m (ninth overall) and 300m hurdles, where he took a silver medal for the third successive year, with 51.92 seconds, outpaced by a hurdler who was 0.7 seconds away from the British record.

Here is a report on the final meeting in the 2012 SCVAC track and field league series. I also attach the results.

The sixth and final league meeting for veteran athletes was held at Erith on 16 July.Rob Carr kindly acted as team manager in the absence of Geoffrey Kitchener.There was a good club response to the call for athletes, and our declaration sheet had every slot filled.

Unfortunately Geoff Vine pulled a hamstring about 120 metres into the 800m race and had to retire. This also prevented him from doing the long jump. Maurice Marchant also had hamstring problems but gallantly completed the 800m, shedding the years to run for the M50 category. He also jogged through the 100m to register a score for the club.

Paul English comfortably won the 100m in 12.6 sec, which took a large chunk out of the club’s M40 best performance timing.

Keith Dowson achieved fourth position in all his events: the 800m, 100m (B stream) and discus. Rob Carr scored in the 800m (B stream) and long jump.

David Simpson, stepping down to the M60 category, took second place in the long jump and also scored in the discus.

The final series event was the relay, run as a medley, in the order 400/200/200/800m. There were four teams competing in the Division 2 race. The 400m leg was very competitive with the first three crossing the line seconds apart. Paul, who had been in third place coming round the final bend, accelerated and gained another place, handing over to Rob.He held position for about 100m but was overtaken on the straight, passing the baton in third position to Maurice. Injury prevented Maurice from keeping up anything other than a fast jog, and the (then) fourth placed team (Invicta) had assigned to this leg a speedster, who rapidly overtook him.Our last leg was run by Keith who, giving away about 50m, had only a very outside chance of catching the Invicta runner. He kept pushing and closed the gap but had to settle for fourth place in the end.

For the entire meeting, we finished fourth on the night.This improved our final position in the series from sixth place to fifth.Again, it was a demonstration of our increased effectiveness when we are able to field a full team.Many thanks to all those who, in addition to the team manager, have competed over the series: Rob Carr, Ron Denney, Keith Dowson, Paul English, Maurice Marchant, David Simpson, Geoff Vine.

Our fourth meeting in the SCVAC track and field league season was our most successful so far.We were only 9 points behind Bromley Vets and Invicta, who were second and third, and we were over 50 points ahead of the fifth and sixth teams, Istead & Ifield and Dartford B.We were helped to this by having filled nearly all event slots on the programme, and by winning three events.

The high point was new member Paul English’s 200m M35 victory, the fastest division 2 competitor of the day, with 26.2 seconds (shaving three tenths of a second off the club best M40 time).Despite not having competed for 15 years, he ran confidently clear of the rest of the field, building up a margin of several seconds.The M60 race was also a Sevenoaks AC victory, despite being Geoffrey Kitchener’s slowest ever time, of 30.5 seconds.Geoffrey also won the M60 high jump, on countback.

Keith Dowson took on the most events in the team, competing in the 200m, 1500m and relay races, as well as securing a third place in the high jump (M35s), interrupted by the need to compete elsewhere, and second place in the M35 javelin.A similar position was secured by Dave Simpson in the M60 javelin event, with a distance of 21.93m, currently good for 8^th place in the M60 national rankings.

The 1500m event was a popular choice for competitors, where Rob Carr (5 minutes 29.2 seconds) joined Keith Dowson (5minutes 1.7 seconds) in the M35s, to take second place in the B stream; Geoff Vine dropped down an age group to run 6 minutes 3.4 seconds for fourth place in the M50 race; and Maurice Marchant spurred Geoff on as a guest runner.The 4x400m relay team of Geoff, Keith, Rob and Paul (in that order) were in contention for much of the race, but left Paul with just a little too much ground to make up in order to run down the Invicta team over the last lap, ending in fourth place, which was also our position in the meeting as a whole.

Here is the programme for the next meeting, at Ashford on Monday, 2^nd July.

6.45	400m women	Triple jump women	Pole vault, men & women	Hammer throw men (incl. over 60s)
7.05	400m men
7.25	3000m women (incl. over 60s)
8.00		Triple jump men		Hammer throw women (incl. over 60s)
8.10	3000m men (incl. over 60s)
8.55	2000m Walk women

I shall be glad to receive any expressions of interest for these events.Also, we are assisting Bromley Vets officiate the triple jump event, so anyone (including injured) able to help out with this (e.g. wielding the rake or holding the tape measure) will be very welcome, and I’m happy to offer a lift.

Geoffrey

Page 4 of 4

Reports

The 2014 Club Grand Prix competitions

Sprint Masterclass

SAC at National Championships

Kent SCVAC T&F match 5

Kent SCVAC T&F match 4