Our annual awards took place this year to celebrate the hard work, dedication and achievements of our athletes across all age categories. We were very lucky to welcome Chris Kandu to present the awards and to give our youngsters encouragement to improve. Chris is Great Britain’s number 2 High Jumper and his achievements this year include winning a medal at the European U23 Championships. He is a great young talent surely destined for future success.
Our awards were split into two categories, Junior and Senior. In the Junior age groups, U11 winners were Emilia Rock and Corben Attebury; U13 went to Lucy Perkins and Curtis Brown. For the U15s Kitty Shepherd Cross and Lee Richards won top awards and Alice Rolfe and Harri Kane reaped the U17 trophies. The last track awards were for the U20s, where Alice Wright and Tijeanne Bartley were this year’s recipients.
Best Cross Country boy and girl were Anna Cuthbert and Max Perry and overall best track awards went to Carmen Williams and Korben Fenty. The field events winners were Erin Alder and Gianni Aquilino.
In the Seniors’ awards Sean Wilson took best Cross Country (male) and the Road Race awards went to Julia Austin and Charlie May. In the track and field categories, Jess Hunter won best track female, and James Davis took the men’s award. Amy Obiamago won the ladies field trophy. The Veteran awards went to Brenda Russell and Rob Taylor with Patrick Taylor winning the best 800m performance award.
This year’s coach of the year went to Tracey Shackleton and another coach, Nicola Ralston was honoured with the Chairman’s Award while the 2015 Presidents’ Award went to Mark Richards and Official of the Year is Jim Tottle. Andy Byerley and Chloe Oldfield both won Special Achievement Awards.
The ‘big’ awards of the evening are of course left until the end of the night; two of which were probably not a surprise to anyone. Jess Hunter won the girls’ Club Athlete of the Year after an amazing season when she became English Schools Champion and competed against the best in the country, including Jessica Ennis. Our Senior Male athlete of the year is Anuradha Cooray who in the last year has competed for Sri Lanka in both the IAAF World Marathon Championships and the Asian Games; he also set a new personal best time for the marathon in London this year at the age of 36.
Male Club Athlete of the Year who has also had a great year is Gianni Aquilino and Senior Female Athlete of the Year is the ever consistent Julia Austin. The final two awards of the evening were the David Humphreys Award which went to Kitty Shepherd Cross and the John Gibson Endurance Award which was won this year by Harri Kane.
And so another year is over and still our athletes from the age of 8 upwards come along to the track on Tuesday and Thursday evenings to train at their chosen events. We congratulate all of our winners but don’t forget all of the other athletes who work at their techniques and speed, and travel all over the country, and indeed the world to test themselves against the best in their disciplines.