| Rimmer joins the elite The British Milers Club promote high quality races with the purpose of raising standards in British middle distance running. Watford was such an occasion and local hero Michael Rimmer seized his opportunity. The Liverpool Pembroke Sefton athlete tracked the Notts AC 800m star Richard Hill through a blistering pace to clock a sensational time of 1.45.7 only a few yards short of his rival. Together they both cracked the sub-1.46 barrier, the official elite level of performance. A huge 3 seconds is hacked off Rimmer`s best and propels him past many senior contemporaries. He now belongs to a small group of talented 20 year olds who are exciting the athletics world with talk of a new Coe, Cram Ovett era. The European Championships in Gothenberg loom in August and Rimmer will be considering the trials in a few weeks time. At a more mundane level Liverpool Pembroke Sefton were at Wigan for a Junior Athletic League match. This is the type of competition Rimmer graduated through. LPS have been trouncing local clubs in the Young Athletes League whilst simultaneously scooping up Athlete of the Match awards. Their older colleagues replicated this with an easy match victory of 50 points and with Mark Leicester long jumping 6.73m and Becci Keegan throwing a the Javelin 32.03m plus a might hammer heave of 37.39m walked off with the respective coveted Athlete of the Match T-shirts. Other eye-catching winning performances came from Mark Grimshaw at 400m in 50.1, Liam Wignall a 11.99 Triple Jump, Natalie Walsh in the Discus with 35.30m and Lauren Cummings an 8.71m Shot Putt. Report Charles Gains 11 June 2006 |
| Northern Senior and Under 20 Championships The athletics world has been abuzz this week with talk of a resurgence of British 800m running following the clutch of 20 year olds who have recently posted sub-1.46 times and include Liverpool Pembroke Sefton sensation, Michael Rimmer. Waxing lyrical the legendary Steve Cram called these `happy days’. Not unexpectedly Rimmer did not appear in the Northern Senior and Under 20 Championships at Manchester’s Sport City. However, several club colleagues did turn out. Best performance came from Ormskirk’s Mark Grimshaw who took silver in the U20 400m in what for him is a modest time of 49.85. Phil Taylor was sharp in the Senior event with 47.85 but this only carried him to sixth. Anne-Marie Pennington was a delighted U20 Javelin bronze medal winner with 33.66m. Ann Taylor was sixth in the same event with 27.86m. In the same age group another member of the LPS successful throwing squad, Natalie Walsh threw the discus 36.74m in what became the favourite position of the weekend, sixth. The most frustrating performance came from U20 Mark Leicester who could only manage 6.32m and fifth in the Long Jump. If he could have replicated the previous week’s leap of 6.73m he would have comfortably taken gold. Report Charles Gains |
| Young Athletes match held at Wrexham There was a thrilling finish to the young athletes match held at Wrexham. Trailing Deeside by 0.5 points going into the relays, victories in 6 of the 9 relays saw LPS triumph with 321.5 points, from Deeside (316), Stockport (239) and Trafford (203.5). Harry Doran’s preformance of 23.2 sec in U17 200 metres and Joel Hutchinson’s 4.49 metres in the U13 Long Jump, saw both athletes receive athletes of the match awards. Emma Bowen comfortably won the U15 girl’s 800 metres in 2.22.6 (grade 2 AAA standard) and there were welcome return to competitive action for a number of the U17 girls. Lauren Cummings was 1st in the B’ shot and Emily Carr 1st in the B’ Javelin. Lucy Holcroft achieved graded standards in both Triple Jump and 100 metres, whilst Kate Hughes achieved a seaon’s best in the 300 metres ((45.2 sec) Becci Keegan again contributed vital points with victories in the U17 Javelin and Shot Putt. LPS goes into the final match, again at Wrexham, in 4th place in the league. Report Wally Bridson 25th June 2006 |
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