The annual Welsh Road Relay Championships were held last weekend at the Llandow race circuit. Despite the event clashing with Mother’s Day, over 200 athletes made their Mothers very proud as they battled for honours.
The first race of the day was the U11 boy and girls primary schools race, covering one lap of the 1400m circuit. The race saw Samuel Martin (Swansea Harriers) and Lucy Davies (Pembrokeshire Harriers) take the individual titles with girls team honours going to Newport Harriers.
The first relay event was the closely contested U13 age groups races, which saw two great battles. In the U13 girls event Menai Track & Field, helped by the fastest individual lap by Ceri Hughes, took the gold medals back to North Wales. In the boys U13 event, only 20 seconds separated the first three teams. The winners, a very strong Cardiff AAC squad, were chased home by Menai Track & Field (2nd) and Carmarthen Harriers (3rd). The fast finishing Carmarthen team was anchored by Nikita Nearey who recorded the fastest leg of 6:27.
The U15 girls event race saw another exciting finish with, once again, a 20 second margin separating all three medal winning teams. Swansea Harriers came out on top on (29:51), from Cwmbran Harriers (30:03) who held off the challenge from Cardiff AAC (30.11). Cwmbran’s silver medal winning team was bought home by Malika Rezoughi who recorded the fastest leg of the day (7:08). The U15 boys event was once more a Swansea Harriers success story, the team sticking double gold as Jonathan Tobin was the fastest individual of the day.
Swansea Harriers continued their dominance, coming out on top in the U17 women’s race, ahead of Cardiff AAC (silver) and Menai Track & Field (bronze). The fastest leg was by Menai Track & Fields Sarah Livett, the only athlete to break the 10 minute barrier over the 2 lap course. The strength of the Menai Track & Field team was testament to the distance they had travelled and the team spirit that they had acquired en route. Cardiff AAC U17 men’s team matched their U13 team mates taking team gold, led out by Mike Ward, and anchored by Elliot Slade. Among the fastest times of the day was Daniel Chesworth (Newport Harriers) showing a good turn of speed to bring Newport Harriers into the bronze medal position, just behind the silver medal winning Carmarthen Harriers team. The top time, however, went to Slade of Cardiff AAC, who clocked a 8:38 for his leg.
The female Masters event saw an easy win for the Les Croupiers women, while in the Masters men 40+ Neath Harriers took the team title. The Masters men 50+ plus age group saw the closest race of the day, with Les Croupiers showing their strength and depth; both the A & B teams crossing the line within two seconds of each other, with the B team taking the title!
The Senior women’s title was won by Swansea Harriers, with Amanda Jones running 14:24 for the fastest leg of the day over three laps. Swansea Harriers men had hoped to repeat their fantastic gold medal performance of last year, however, this year they couldn’t quite match a strong Cardiff AAC team. Cardiff were led off by the in-form Rowan Axe (17:12), Swansea fought back on leg 2 with a good performance from Marc Hobbs (17:13). The final leg saw Ieuan Thomas (Cardiff AAC) take over the lead with a slight gap over Welsh Cross Country Champion Afan Humphries (Swansea Harriers). Despite being chased, Thomas held his nerve to not only help Cardiff to victory but also run the fastest leg of the day in the process (17:09).
In summary, a very exciting day of relay running; Welsh Athletics would like to express their gratitude to all of the officials and volunteers that helped make the days such a success.
Photographs of the event are available in our Galleries page.
Results available here.