Son Mike beats his dad to the finish
Reporter: Local sport: athletics
Date published: 12 June 2009
FIVE Oldham and Royton Harriers headed to Halifax for the Halifax Town Centre 5k — part of the celebrations for Halifax Harriers’ 125th anniversary.
Mike Smith led the Oldham runners‚ home in 22nd place in 19 minutes eight seconds, and he finished ahead of his dad Karl, who was 40th in 20:20.
Pete Williams finished 66th in 21:45, closely followed by Sandrine Fraisse in 68th in 22:04, with Rachel Ricketts was 97th in 23:53.
On the track, both the young athletes and the seniors took part in the second matches in their leagues.
The youngsters finished an excellent second overall, helped by some excellent wins from Emily Ward in the under-17s shot (7.22m), Heather Moran (under-15s 100m in 13.1s), Bobbie-Leigh Tindall (the ‘A’ 200m in 27.8s) and Mary Elcock (’B’ 200m in 28.3s).
Heather Moran and Emily Tudbury won the ‘A’ and ‘B’ long jump with 4.27m and 4.12m respectively, Mary Elcock also won the high jump with 1.35m, while Bobbie-Leigh Tindall won the ‘B’ javelin with 8.30m.
In the boys events, there were wins in the under-17s for Aaron Howarth (100m 11.7s), Jack Cooke (200m 24.3s) and javelin (27.57m), Christian Johnson (200m ‘B’ 25.0s and 400m ‘B’ 58.4s), Bradley Szakacs (400m 54.6s and 800m 2:14.0) and Jack Wilkinson (hammer 35.12m, discus 33:45).
In the under-15s, Adam Howard clinched victory in the 200m (27.0s) and 1500m (4:38.4), Elliott Astle was first in the discus with 24.0m, the shot put (9.81m) and javelin (27.23m), while Jake Riley won the ‘B’ shot with 6.98m.
Chris Brown led the under-13s with wins in the 100m (14.4s), the 800m (2:34.9) and the long jump (4.08m), while Connor Colleavey won the ‘B’ long jump with 3.87m.
In the senior league, there were wins for Jack Cooke in the 200m in 23.7s and Reece Hendley won 400m hurdles in 59.6s.
Throwing events saw Colin Allen win the ‘B’ hammer with 27.97m and shot with 8.94m, while Mike Rigby won the ‘A’ shot with 11.07m and the ‘B’ discus with 27.03m.
Andrew Mayes won the javelin with 44.30m and Courtney Atkinson won the ‘B’ long jump with 4.06m.
Sharon Harper was victorious the ‘B’ hammer with 23.24m and the men’s 4x100m relay team of Reece Hendley, Jack Cooke, Lee Whitehead and Gary Kearns won in a time of 47.1s.
