UK Women's Athletics League 2005: Match 1, Ware
Belles win well in windy Ware
Having missed out on promotion by a measly couple of match points last season, the Belles' intentions for 2005 were made clear with an emphatic win at Ware in spite of a few blank spaces on the team sheet.
Good points came in the hammer thanks to Diane Holden and Jacqui Loney, from there on the points piled up and the Belles moved into an early lead which grew to a winning margin of 43 by the end of the day.
Hannah Stares set the ball rolling on the track with a win in the long hurdle race but with Jennifer Culley, our other regular one lap hurdler, due to cover the sprints, we had to make do with just the one runner.
Sarah Wellstead made a dramatic impact in the jumps, winning both long and triple, the latter with her best ever performance. Fellow Sutton athlete Katryna Euridge backed up with a winning B long jump and Michelle Nestor did likewise in the triple. Also from Sutton, Sarah Porter cleaned up in her events - the B 100 and a sprint hurdles - and the three Sutton girls combined with Hannah Stares to do a demolition job in the sprint relay.
Eva Massey had the shot putt judges scampering to the further end of the arc and "complaining" that the 4kg ball had ice on it by the time it came down from orbit. Fifteen metres didn't please her, however, and she'll be looking for something around 16 plus before too long.
The standard of the middle distance races was particularly high and Birhan Dagne, fresh from winning the hilly Plymouth Half Marathon seven days earlier, found it impossible to stay clear of the pack in the 1500m.
Two-lapper Claire Robinson ran within a second of her season's best for second in the A 800m while Chrissie Foster ran her best for the year to win the B event. Next on the track was the 400 metres, and having seen Michelle Carey run away from the field with a 54.3 run and with no B competitor due to take part, Chrissie pulled her spikes back on to run sub-60 for second - some double for her!
Honesty proved not to be the best policy for Jennifer Culley who stood up from her blocks after she judged that she'd got a flier. Unfortunately the starter had not seen it that way and did not fire the recall gun so it was "nil points" for the A 200. Happily she was allowed a guest run in the following B race.
So, it was a happy Cynthia James after match 1 - and we just hope that we can do a similar job at Stoke in three weeks time.
100m: 3 J Culley 12.5; 1 S Porter 12.8. 200m: dns J Culley; 2 C Robinson 27.3; J Culley (guest run in B race) 26.5. 400m: 1 M Carey 54.3; 2 C Foster 59.4; 800m: 2 C Robinson 2:11.6; 1 C Foster 2:19.3. 1500m: 4 B Dagne 4:43.3; 3 A England 5:00.2. 3000m: 5 S Murphy 10:40.1; 5 V Goodwin 12:15.8. 100mH: 1 S Porter 14.2; 1 H Stares 14.7. 400mH: 1 H Stares 61.6. HJ: 2 H Stares 1.55; 2 M Nestor 1.45. LJ: 1 S Wellstead 5.86; 1 K Euridge 5.27. TJ: 1 S Wellstead 12.04; 1 M Nestor 11.05. PV: 2 J Searle 2.50. SP: 1 E Massey 15.07; 2 L Fox 10.43. DT: 3 L Fox 35.30; 1 J Loney 35.19. JT: 7 J Loney 21.27; 4 H Mead 17.96. HT: 1 D Holden 51.39; 2 J Loney 42.44. 4x100m: 1 Belgrave 49.1 (S Porter, H Stares, S Wellstead, K Euridge). 4x400m: 3 Belgrave 4:02.9 (J Culley 58.0, C Foster 59.7, V Goodwin 65.2, C Robinson 59.0).
1 Belgrave 226; 2 Blackheath &B 183; 3 Herts Phoenix 172.5; 4 Thames Valley 154; 5 Stoke 129; 6 Medway & Maidstone 111; 7 Kingston upon Hull 107.5; Radley 55.
Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.