Oxford City Athletic Club

Saturday 29^th April was the second round of the Southern men’s league Division 3 West. Unfortunately for the second match in a row Oxford City again slipped to defeat against some close but strong opposition. Lack of availability, injuries and conflicting competitions meant Oxford were reduced to a team of only 8 athletes, some of which filling in events in which they would usually not compete. Bad luck again struck the team as Mark Beerling picked up a slight injury after his excellent win in the 5000m forcing him to withdraw from the 400m.

However it was not all doom and gloom for the Oxford boys as a number of old faces who missed the first match returned to the team. Phil Castle, Ian Castle and Antony Palman-Brown all returned to strengthen the team. Notable performances came from both Phil and Antony as between them they filled 14 events!

Once again City’s Ladies team excelled themselves. With a depleted squad because of other events over the weekend, a second place finish was a bonus in their campaign for promotion in their first season back in the league, and the lead going into the third match is now 85 points.

The five under 15 girls who made the trip to a gale swept Yeovil came away with top three placings in just about every event. Nionah Ntaranga won her shot and discus competitions with new personal bests, matched by Amelia Swan in her first 100m of the season. With Lizzie Berg, Kirsty Parkinson and Harriette Cooke all performing well in sometimes unfamiliar events, this again was an outstanding squad performance.

As most of you will know Kit Villiers is retiring from many years
sterling service as coordinator of the Oxford Mail  Cross-Country
League.  The league has not yet found a replacement, so if you think you could help, please let me know.
The main aspects of the position are:
arranging AGM for July and sending notices thereof to the clubs;  (I
think Kit will do that for this year's AGM)
distribute entry forms to the clubs after AGM, and in October prepare
and send race packs to the entered clubs;
liaise with timekeepers and Oxford Mail, including collecting start and
finish banners;
prepare and bring results envelopes to each round;
arrange awards ceremony after the final round.
Kit also managed to run in all the races, so you needn't hang up your

City ladies take a lead of 100 points into the second match of the season on Saturday. Directions to Yeovil can be found here. For further information contact Carl Pinder.

This Saturday OCAC men's team travel to Southampton to compete in match two of the season. A mini Bus will be leaving he track on Saturday morning time to be confirmed. Please contact Phil Jeffrey for further details 07966 737883.

OCAC are away at Guildford & Godalming this Sunday 21st May match 2. Opposition will be Guilford & Godalming 3rd,Isle of White 4th, Woking 16th see league table below. Click here for directions. We need a full turnout this Sunday after a great start to the season in match 1.
Please contact Carl 07811 452586  & Andy .

City athletes brought home a total of 39 gold medals from the weekend’s county championships with many personal best performances, championship records and English Schools qualifying standards being achieved.
The outstanding performance of the championships for City must surely go to Danielle Anderson.  Her 33.96m throw in the U15 girls Javelin was not only an English Schools national standard but would have been sufficient to have secured the gold medal at last years Schools National Track and Field championships.  And this was in her first year in the age group.
Kirsty Warland had already set a high standard of performance in the U15 girls 75m hurdles setting a new championship best performance of 11.5 seconds which is also an English Schools qualifying mark.
Sisters Bea (U15) and Beth (U13) Swords pulled of a stunning middle distance double as both won their age group races in the 1500m and 800m leading from gun to tape.  On Saturday the girls won the 1500m races by some margin and followed this up with strong performances in the 800m.  Beth’s time of 2:30.3 was a personal best time.  Bea set a new championship record of 2:13.6 improving the previous mark that had stood for over 30 years by 2.2 seconds.

After another good start to the season we will be looking forward to winning the Western League again and to repeat our last year's victory in the final at Battersea on the 3rd September.  An excellent win and age graded performance for Dominic in the 400, and an excellent age graded performance from Brian Green in the 1500.

Tim Grose has extended his in depth rankings service to include all disciplines, for all standard age groups male and female, for 2005 and 2006.
This is a developing website which already includes over 300,000 performances from over 25,000 athletes in all events.
Tim and his team of statisticians aim to provide up to date information for you to follow your progress throughout the season.
Link to athleticsdata.com can be found on left toolbar