Saturday 4th June saw Bedford and County’s senior Men and Women host round 2 of the National Athletics League Championship (Fixture A). Following a reasonable result in a tough round 1 match at Chelmsford that left the club 13th out of the 16 teams in the league, there was a sense among many that Bedford had a point to prove in a match that would see them face all the teams that finished below them in the 2021 season, local rivals Peterborough and Nene valley, and last season’s Champions, Crawley.
As is usually the case with Team competition there were numerous personnel changes both before and during the competition. Nonetheless, Team managers Craig Emmerson and Jemma Eastwood fielded a strong team that included:
- Athletes that have represented England or Great Britain at both senior and junior level
- 7 of the bronze medal-winning team from the recent National 12 stage road relay
- Several current or former English Schools champions
- Many athletes ranked 1st in the UK in their age group.
- European and world masters medallists
However, despite the strength in several areas, it must be acknowledged that some gaps in other events cost the team in other areas. Ultimately, Bedford finished 3rd behind runaway winners Crawley and a strong Havering team in second, a result that is probably a fair reflection of where the squad is at the moment. As would be expected with team results, there were several A and B string wins for Bedford athletes on the day:
- Gracie Wall, number 1 in the UK under-17 rankings, took victory in the Women’s high jump (1.69m)
- Sam Winters (1:54.51) and Joe Strange (1:58.63) won the Men’s 800m A and B races respectively – in convincing fashion- to secure maximum points.
- Belinda Sergent (11.23) returned from injury to take the win in the women’s triple jump by a clear margin.
- Scott Johnson made a winning return to the team in the high jump, taking victory with a first-time clearance of 1.86M.
- The Men’s 3000m steeplechase saw an overall Bedford 1-2. Harry Brodie (9:54.51) won the A string, followed by Craig Emmerson in 2nd (10:07.63) winning the B string.
- The Men’s 1500m saw another overall Bedford 1-2- and maximum points as Former Great Britain XC Intentional, Jack Goodwin (3:58.55) won the A string and recent England XC representative, Ben Alcock (3:59.03) finished 2nd overall to take the B string victory- Ben was some 4 seconds ahead of the 2nd placed A string runner.
There were also several PBs and solid performances across the board, full results can be found here: https://data.opentrack.run/en-gb/x/2022/GBR/nal-champ-2a/scores/
Attention now turns to round 3 at Stevenage on Saturday 2nd July - hosted by Herts Phoenix- where the opposition will include Tonbridge AC- which could see some fiercely contested middle distance races as the two middle distance giants collide. Bedford will look to build further momentum towards the Championship Grand Final on Sunday 21st August at Bedford.
