Belgrave win men's and women's Rosenheim League titles
Belgrave won both the men’s and women’s trophies at a balmy Rosenheim League final at Kingsmeadow.
The Rosenheim League is a Wednesday evening track and field competition contested by south London clubs over three divisional fixtures, culminating in a final in late August. It provides convenient after-work competition opportunities for Londoners.
It was a very successful evening at Kingsmeadow. Belgrave's men and women both won the Rosenheim final and were awarded the two team trophies. The final is held between the four top finishing teams from the East and West divisions. Belgrave had earlier qualified by heading the East division after three matches.
The league came about after a trip to Rosenheim, a town in Germany in the 1960's organised by Hercules AC before they amalgamated with Wimbledon AC. Always held on a Wednesday evening between local South London clubs, it provides excellent competition with just one scoring athlete in each event and with any number of non-scorers, it provides the opportunity to try out different disciplines and treat races as hard training runs. From 2010 until 2019 , Belgrave's Paskar Owor would often do just that, running under 2 minutes for 800m, under 4 minutes for 1500m and under 9 minutes for 3000m all on the same evening.
Unfortunately, over the last few years possibly due to the increased number of open meetings, the matches have become less popular, and clubs have found it difficult to field complete teams. This year the number of fixtures was reduced from five to just three plus the final. It would be a great shame if this long-standing event were to disappear from the calendar.
However, this does not distract from a fine overall performance from the Belgrave athletes on the night. Our women won every track race except the steeplechase and, between them, Mia Callenburg and Frida Engstrom amassed all the Belles’ field event points, Mia even winning the pole vault. The highlight was an excellent sprint double by Rosey Smythe.
Belgrave men were either first or second in every event with just the pole vault not covered. Daniel Woodburn ran the 100m and 200m, Valentin Rigori won the steeplechase and Henry Hart just missed out on a sub-4-minute 1500m by a couple of seconds after running solo. He later paced Conall McNally to help him win the 3000m. Matjus Mager and Pierre Walker took care of the field events.
Team results
Women; 1, Belgrave 84, 2. Epson and Ewell 75, 3. Woking AC 34, 4. Walton AC 24, 5, Serpentine 18.
Men; 1. Belgrave, 2. Woking 64, 3. Croydon AC 57, 4, Holland Sports 53.5, 5, Epson and Ewell 40, 6, Walton AC 38.5, 7, Hercules Wimbledon 27, 8, British Airways 17.
Individual results
100m. 1. Rosey Smythe 13.2 2. Daniel Woodburn 11.4
200m. 1. Rosey Smythe 27.4 1. Daniel Woodburn 23.3
400m. 1. Joanne Peak 65.8 2. Andrew Gibb 53.4
800m 1. Fiona Maddocks 2;19.9 2. James Roberts 2:02.6
1500m 1. Emily Bradley 5:17.6 1. Henry Hart 4:02.6
3000m 1. Lizzie Goldie-Scott 10:48.2 1. Conall Mcnally 9:10.3
2000m S/C. - 1. Valentin Rigori 6:57.2
Long Jump, 3. Mia Callenburg 4.01 2. Pierre Walker 5.23
Pole Vault, 1. Mia Callenburg 1.23 -
Shot Putt, 2. Mia Callenburg 10.29 1. Matjus Mager 10.78
Hammer Th, 2. Frida Engstrom 32.61 1. Matjus Mager 33.45
4 X 200m, 1. Belgrave 2:05.8 1. Belgrave 1:36.0
Thanks to Robert Norville and Fiona Maddocks for an excellent job team managing.