Stadium, club and personal records galore at Biggleswade One Mile Open
Our second annual Biggleswade One Mile Open meeting was a great success, producing four new Sandy stadium records, seven BAC club records and a host of PBs.
Home club highlights included:
● Lauren Bone setting both a new stadium record for the Women’s One Mile, breaking the previous record by over 16 seconds, and a new club Women’s record with a time of 5:44.1. In doing so, she also broke her own club U-15G record set at last year’s Open Mile event.
● Sidney Hammond breaking the club Men’s One Mile record with a time of 4:51.7, beating the previous record of 4:54.8 held by Richard Bevan since 2012. He also broke the club U-17M record for that distance of 5:05.3 which had stood since 2002.
● Austin Milner setting a new club record for the U-15B One Mile with a time of 5:18.7, beating Sid’s previous record of 5:22.5 set in last year’s One Mile Open.
● George Hardy setting a new club record for the U-20M One Mile with a time of 5:09.5 to win his race, beating the previous record of 5:16.0 set in 2012.
● Polly Lawrence setting a club record for the U-13G One Mile category with a time of 7:18.3.
The One Mile Open meeting, held on Wednesday evening, September 10, attracted well over 60 entries, more than 50 percent up on the number for last year’s inaugural event. Apart from one rain shower just before the first race, the evening stayed dry if a bit breezy.
The first race on the programme was the One Mile Race Walk with an entry list of 13 ranging in age from U-11 to V-65. The winner was 13-year-old Spencer Jones from Wrexham AAC whose finishing time of 8:23.7 was a new stadium record for the Men’s One Mile Race Walk. Second was U-20 athlete Cerys Bithell from Newmarket Joggers who set a new stadium Women’s One Mile Race Walk record of 8:31.8.
The evening’s five One Mile running races also saw two new stadium records set. The first was the Women’s set by Lauren. The second was achieved by Thomas Bailey, an U-20M athlete from St Albans AC, who set a new Men’s record with a time of 4:44.4 – beating the previous record by all of 0.4 secs!
Each of the four stadium record breakers qualified for the £30 prize on offer for such achievements, slightly reducing club income from the meeting but definitely providing an additional incentive for the athletes!
Other highlights of the evening for BAC included Ted Islip showing huge determination to battle his way round the four laps of the track, with great support from club mate and pace-maker Ryan Kennerley, to set a PB for the mile of 8:59.7.
Other BAC PBs for the Mile were set by:
Phil Rowlett, M-35: 5:49.3
James Watson, M-35: 5:50.3
Lewis Evans, U-13B: 5:53.0
Ross Bone, U-13B: 5:58.6
Darren Janssen, M-35: 6:05.0
Theo Milner, U-13B: 5:39.1
Nicholas Battarbee, U-20M: 5:26.3
Kishan Modi, Senior M: 5:31.1
Darren Janssen, M-35, One Mile Race Walk: 10:58.9
In addition to the mile races, there was a 600m race for U-11s. Unfortunately some of the expected entries did not turn up on the night so BAC U-11s Nathan Cornwall and Theo Gregg had to settle for battling each other and the breeze. Both ran really well, with Nathan finishing first in a time of 2:01.6, with Theo not far behind in 2:18.4.
And finally………..Many thanks to this year’s One Mile Open chief organiser, Darren Janssen, and all the event officials who ensured everything ran smoothly, including BAC’s David Brown and Carol Brunning.
PHOTOS: Thanks to Louise Cant, Phil Hastings, Darren Janssen and Melissa Knox for the photos which accompany this report.
RESULTS: https://www.thepowerof10.info/results/results.aspx?meetingid=717831