In what was officially declared as her final track outing of a very successful but short season, Morpeth Harrier Laura Weightman ran very close to her personal best in the Women’s 3000m in the Diamond League Meeting held in Doha, on the evening of Friday 25th September 2020.
Weightman was always amongst the leading protagonists in the seven and a half lap event, and only began to drop slightly off a frenetic front running pace set by World Champion Helen Obiri of Kenya, who went on to win in 8m22.54s. It was an event dominated by Kenyans, who including Obiri, occupied the first five places. Weightman, meanwhile did well to finish seventh, posting a finishing time of 8m26.31s, her personal best being the 8m26.07s, that she set in California in 2019. Fellow Brits Eilish McColgan, and Melissa Courtney-Bryant finished twelfth and fourteenth in respective times of 8m40.88s, and 8m56.11s. Boosted by his midweek performance at Loughborough, where he took six seconds off his personal best, Morpeth Harrier Ross Charlton decided to give the seven and a half lap 3000m event another go, before effectively ending his short track season blighted by the Coronavirus epidemic, by taking part in the fastest event at the Trafford Open series, held at Stretford, Manchester, on Saturday 19th September 2020
. Charlton finished an excellent fourth in a classy line-up, posting another brand-new personal best of 8m38.36s, thus taking a massive fourteen seconds off his previous achievement at Loughborough. This effectively means, that in a truly short season, with competition being blighted by the virus, Charlton has used his zest for hard work in training, to take a hefty twenty seconds or so off his 2019 achievements. His three 2020 3000m performances in the Under 20 age group, now see him ranked at number 14 in the country so far, and number 2 regionally behind club colleague Rory Leonard. Charlton now heads off to further his education career at Bath University, taking with him many plaudits from his clubmates at Morpeth Harriers. Laura Weightman’s superb but relatively strange season continued in Berlin on Sunday 13th September, when she again finished in second place in the Women’s 1500m, on this occasion behind fellow Brit Laura Muir, who ran the fastest time of the year of 3m57.40s.
Meanwhile a delighted Weightman managed to crack her own personal best, by a mere fraction, as she clocked 4m00.09s, her previous best being 4m00.17s, which she had achieved back in 2014 in the Paris Diamond League. Her only immediate disappointment was the fact that she just missed on ducking under the magical four minute mark. Her performances so far this season have certainly been pointing towards this achievement, and her recent winning of the UK Championship has obviously been a timely boost to the 29-year-old Morpeth Harrier. It is such a shame that she has not been able to transfer such form to the possibility of a third Olympics, which were scheduled to take place in Tokyo this summer, and were cancelled because of the Coronavirus epidemic, and are now rescheduled for 2021. Third place in Sunday’s event went to Australian Jessica Hull, who clocked 4m00.42s. Great Britain’s Melissa Courtney-Bryant finished an excellent fourth in 4m02.34s. In his final summer track event of 2020, before heading off to Bath University to further his education, eighteen year old Morpeth Harrier Ross Charlton signed off in fine style, by producing an excellent personal best of 8m52.92s, when finishing a close third in the third fastest 3000m event, at the Charnwood Open meeting, held at Loughborough, on the evening of Wednesday 16th September.
Ross, who has been a member of Morpeth Harriers for over eight years, joining as an Under 11 athlete, was certainly pleased with his new figures, which saw him take just over six seconds off his previous best for the seven and a half lap event, which had been at Gateshead in August 2019. In addition, there was no one more prouder than his Mum Naomi, who had accompanied him on the trip. He is hoping to continue his association with Morpeth Harriers whilst he is in Bath, in the belief that some form of Cross-Country competition is achievable this winter, despite the prevailing effects of the Coronavirus epidemic. Three athletes from Morpeth Harriers took part in the BMC Gold Standard event, held at Stretford, Manchester on the evening of Tuesday 15th September.
Alex Brown finished a very close third, in the third fastest of four Men’s 3000m events, posting a brand new personal best of 8m24.55s, thus taking a whole eight seconds off his previous best time for the seven and a half lap event. Finishing just ahead of him were winner Alex Carcus of Edinburgh AC (8m23.54s), and second placed George Watson of Loughborough Students (8m24.33s). In the third fastest of five Men’s 1500m events, Joe Armstrong won in a new personal best time of 3m50.11s, taking three seconds off his previous achievement. Rory Leonard, now beginning his University career at Loughborough, instead of his previously planned one in America, will be a little disappointed in the fact that he fell a bit short of his fastest time in the Men’s 1500m A Race. He posted 3m50.65s, which saw him place seventh of eight in a talent filled event. |
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