Gold Medals for TVH’s Young Athletes at the Middlesex Road Relays

Nightmare traffic jam on the M4 caused chaos for families going to Middlesex Relays. With the non-arrival of families travelling to the Minet Cycle Track via the M4 the team declarations were in disarray. Changes were made and then thanks to stupendous efforts by parents, most of the athletes arrived in time for their event. Unfortunately some under 11’s and under 13’s arrived too late for their race. Running orders were re-arranged and some girls were in different teams and on different laps before all were resolved.

Luckily some under 11’s and under 13’s arrived before the road blockage and were able to run. In the girls under 11 race, Sasha Mueller finished a brilliant second in her first race for TVH. This equalled the fine start to her running career of Kate Price who was second last year. Morris Rock was our only boy in the under 11 race and he did well to finish 4th out of 11 runners. The under 13 boys must also to be congratulated on finishing second Middlesex team in their relay. With three teams in front of them they were unaware that two of them were Hertfordshire teams. Basil Rock led off and finished 4th on the first lap. Aidan Ferrand and Alfie Turner held their places and were well rewarded with 2^nd Middlesex team. Non-scoring team of two, Charlie Rollo and Noor-Eldin Mahmoud were unable to finish a team because of the traffic problems.

The under 13 girls went one better and won their race. Zakia Mossi was 2^nd Middlesex home and Olivia Colgrave put them in the lead. Kate Price ran the fastest time of the race to bring the team home 1^st. The B team also did well to finish 7^th. Led off by Lily Dafter who had a brilliant run to finish 4^th behind Zakia. Having her first distance race, Kaisa Hanni did well to keep her team 7^th. Eva-Marie brought the team home in 7^th place. The only club to have 3 teams, the Valley were 9^th with Mabel Salkeld leading off, Aramay Robertson, also a newcomer had a good run and Camille Rousset brought them home.

Franklin Pru D’Homme had a great first race for TVH and finished 3^rd for the under 15 boys team on the first lap. Unfortunately Sam Vickers and Matthew Forster could not keep the momentum going and the team dropped back to 11^th.

The girls did much better and repeated their win of last year. Charlotte Buckley was again the fastest in her race. With Ava White also having an outstanding run it was left to Philippine Poupart-Lafarge to also run a minute faster than last year to bring the team home. Their time was 54 seconds faster than last year. The B team were just unlucky to finish 4^th only 5 seconds behind Ealing. Lily Salkeld, Lily Cheshire and Charlie Cooney-Quinn almost made it. The only club 3^rd team present had Capucine Rousset leading off with Ellie Power next. Melina Duer made a great effort to move the team up but they had to be content with 8^th place.

Jake Hooley had the fastest Valley time although he was in the B team. After his great 36 min run in the County 10k the previous week he kept his speed going with the 4^th fastest time of the day. The others in his team, Lous Medd and Nick Duer were beaten into 3^rd place by our A team. Lucillo Burrell, Max Buckly and Oliver Weintraub came away with bronze medals.

With several girls injured it showed our great dept in strength to again win the women’s under 17 relay. Kosana Weir was down to run the first lap but due to the M4 blockage she was moved to the last lap to give her time to arrive. This may have cost her the fastest lap and she ended up 3^rd fastest. Margaux Couffon did a great job on the first lap and Verity Walker moved the Valley up to 2^nd place with a faster time than last year. Then Kosana gradually pulled the leader in and caught her just after half way round. She then finished with the 3^rd fastest lap. Rose Barkle led off the ‘B’ team and two new members of the squad, Amelia Casey and Isabelle Ellis showed great promise on the 2^nd and 3^rd laps to finish 5^th.

Results:

U11 Boys 1500m. 4 m Rock 5:33

U13 Boys: ‘A’ B Rock 11:26; A Ferrand 11:51; A Turner 11:15. Team 2^nd 34:32. ‘B’ C Rollo 11:51; N Mahmoud 13:22.

U15 Boys: F Pru D’Homme 10:35; S Vickers 12:10; M Forster 14:01. Team 11^th 36:53.

U17 Men: ‘A’ L Burrell 10:02; M Buckley 10:23; O Weintraub 10:33. Team 3^rd 30:58, ‘B’ J Hooley 9:46; L Medd 10:53; N Duer 11:09. Team 4^th 31:48.

U11 Girls 1500m: 2 S Mueller 5:36.

U13 Girls ‘A’ Z Mossi 11:49; O Colgrave 13:02; K Price 11:46 (f). Team 1^st 36:37 ‘B’ L Dafter 12:29; K Hanni 13:55; E Weintraub 14:20. Team 7^th 40:44. ‘C’ M Salkeld 14:25; A Robertson 13:19; C Rousset 16:27. Team 9^th 44:11.

U15 Girls ‘A’ C Buckley 10:52 (f); A White 11:12; P Poupart-Lafarge 12:03. Team 1^st 34.07. ‘B’ L Salkeld 12:06; L Cheshire 12:46; C Cooney-Quinn 13:18. Team 4^th. ‘C’ C Rousset 13:17; E Power 14:16; M Duer 12:27. Team 8^th 40:00.

U17 Women: ‘A’ M Couffon 12:04; V Walker 11:40; K Weir 11:28. Team 1^st 35:12. ‘B’ R Barkle 12:34; A Casey 11:57; I Ellis 12:18. Team 5^th 36:49.