Athletes shine at Saucony Grand Prix
The Chengelo Elite Squad enjoyed a relatively shorter journey to their meet on Sunday afternoon as the Southampton Sports Centre was the venue for the Saucony Hampshire Athletics Grand Prix. The weather forecast was for rain, but it held off and the only tricky weather the athletes had to tackle was a slightly gusty wind. To counteract that negative force was some excellent support offered by Graham and Anna Osmond, former Chengelo staff members.
Chigo was the first athlete to take to the track as he targeted a personal best in the 1500m. Aiming for a 72-second first lap and a 4 minute 30 seconds 1500m, "Cruise Control" clocked some excellent splits, passing athletes throughout the race as he so often does and finishing second in 4 minutes 30.27 seconds. This was over three seconds faster than his personal best and a superb achievement for Chigo.
The Bangala sisters were running in their age groups in the 200m and Johanna was up first in the under-15 heat. The girls have been practising their sprint starts this week and it showed as Johanna exploded out of the blocks and led from start to finish. The clock showed 26.34 seconds but the time was later rounded down to 26.27 seconds, her second fastest time ever.
Maria was running in the under-17 girls category and knew there was a fast girl in her race. As expected, her rival was faster over the first 50 metres and Maria found herself about five metres back going into the straight. However, she stayed calm on the straight and took the lead in the last 15 metres to win in 26.77 seconds, just 0.27 seconds slower than her personal best.
The squad enjoyed their first daytime UK competition and now look forward to their last meet at the Watford Open Graded Meeting on Wednesday.
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