Two Durham City Harriers athletes Tia Anderson and Ben Horsfield competing for Durham County Schools were delighted to hear the news over the weekend that they have been selected to compete for their County in the English Schools Track & Field Championships at Birmingham on 12th/13th July. Tia and Ben had already achieved their qualifying times in previous races but they both produced timely victories in the Northern Schools Inter-County Schools Athletics Championships at Gateshead on the 15th June.
Ben was first to compete in the Senior Boys 800m race and the plan was to win at all costs and that he achieved in a slow tactical run race and then relied on his fast finishing pace and it paid off returning a time of 2.01.22.
Tia had to wait well into the race program for her Intermediate Girls 300m Final , again she needed to win to help back up her claim also, and this she did in fine style and led from start to finish to win convincingly in a time of 41.49.
Tia’s younger brother Travis was also amongst the medals too with a Bronze in the Junior Boys 300m recording a personal best time of 39.44.
Matthew Douthwaite competed in the last individual track race of the afternoon the Senior Men’s 400m and almost pulled off a fine victory but was just beaten on the line and had to settle for Silver in a time of 52.89.
Other City Harriers competing for Durham County were as follows:
Intermediate Girls :
300m Lauren Etchells 4th 44.63.
200m Amy Colling 7th 28.38 (plus relay), Ellie Harris 8th 28.46 (plus relay).
800m Emily Salmon 7th 2.25.04.
Junior Boys :
1500m Sam Terry 7th 4.42.13.
Sprinter Cody Hall (Junior Girl) and Middle Distance runner (Senior Boys) also competed but official times are not yet on line to date.
In the historical and traditional Annual Blaydon Race, Matt Walker (v/35) was the Club’s first runner to finish in 88th position out of a field of over 4000 runners recording a time of 30.54 for the 5.4 mile course. Other runners to finish showing chip times were: Tom Rutherford (u/17) 33.06, Simon Gardner (v/45) 33.37, Ashley Cockram 33.52 , Jonathan Urwin 38.14, Shaun Day (v/50) 38.48, Paul Lancastle (v/55) 43.54, Nicola Whyte (v/35) 43.37, Paul Donaghy (v/50) 50.28, Clare Bayliss (v/45) 62.24, Fiona Holloway (v/45) 62.51, Jacqui Toase (v/40) 62.51, Ruth Stokes (v/50) 74.50, Karen Jones (v/45) 100.46.