National Relay Championships – report from Ian Firla
In club competition, there is little that matches the excitement of a relay. As the day unfolded, this was undoubtedly true and thrills were delivered over and over again; however, at 7:00 am in the Norman Park car park, that excitement wasn’t exactly palpable.
48 athletes with the support of team managers and a handful of parents set off to the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham for the 2nd annual National Relay competition.
The first team to compete on the day was the u15 girls 4 x 100 of Noelle Carr, Matilda Murray, Zamaia Dixon and India Ellington. They ran a superb heat but such was the level of competition that despite running a time that was less than a half second of their season best, they finished just outside of a qualifying spot for the final.
Next up was the u15 boys 4 x 100 squad featuring Jericho and Nico Senior, Chris Ndukwu and Sylvester Amot-Konadu Jr. They ran a season best of 46.59 to qualify for the final where, impressively and maturely, they adapted their markings to accommodate for Sylvester suffering a calf strain and improved their time by nearly a full second and finishing in a very commendable 5th place.
The u17 women’s 4 x 100 was next to run. Chizam Boniface, Cheyanne Nkita, Sophie Tran and Nevie Tamblyn cantered through their heats comfortably before running a season’s best to finish with our first medal of the day and only 1/100th of a second out of silver.
The u17 men’s team of Nicholas Marquez, Daniel Olatunji, Olufikaya Lana and Riley Austin ran in a very competitive heat coming 3rd but missing out on the final by less than 3/10ths of a second.
Our u20 women’s team formed of Gracelyn Kendeck, Emilia Adese (u17), Honey Chalmers and Indiana Marshall ran excellent heat to qualify for the final with a big Q but come the final, they were hampered by some aches and niggles and couldn’t match their performance from the heats in the final.
The u20 men fought incredibly hard in their heat. A nearly half second season best by the team of Ryen Rennie, Sam Mowa, Marley Byfield and Chinedu Nduwku was just short of qualifying for the final. The team showed a lot of level headed thinking by deciding during the last phases of the warm up to replace Zuriel Nowgwugwu with Chinedu when Zuriel felt his hamstring tightening. His selfless withdrawal meant that he wasn’t risking compromising the senior men’s 4×400 team from competing later in the day.
With the 4 x 100 relays out of the way, the team quickly started recalibrating for the longer races. Several athletes including Sophie Tran, Jericho Senior, Chinedu Nduwku, Sam Mowa and Ryen Rennie were doubling up for the day and used the short break to fuel up and try to relax before their next huge efforts.
Karan Bryan, Maya Conell, Aoife Stanley and Freya Pearson were the first of our long relays to hit the track in the u15 girls 4×300. Despite really powerful runs by all four girls, they came 4th in the final, just missing out on a podium.
The u15 boys of Aathi Gananathan, Johnny Lee, Jack Barlow and Jericho Senior (running his 3rd race of the day), were only 4/100ths off their season best and came agonisingly close to securing another podium finish. 4th place for the boys.
The u17 women’s 4 x 300 team formed of Beth Regan, Alice Witherspoon, Faith Sogoye and Sophie Tran (also in her 3rd race of the day!) couldn’t hang on to the fierce competition and finished 5th on the day. This team has so much strength and potential in it that they will no doubt fire back in the YDL final in a few week’s time.
The u17 men’s 4 x 400 team smashed their season best by nearly a second and frustratingly came 4th despite an appeal being put in by the team to the track referee for two cases of obstruction by the team that took the bronze. The second one was clear enough that the commentators on the live stream called it out but despite presenting video evidence and the spike marks on Kian’s leg, the officials remained unmoved. The team of Aidan Williams, Kian Farrell, Thomas Vallins, and Alexander D’Cruz can hold their heads high. Next year, the podium will be theirs.
The Senior men’s 4 x 400 squad was composed of a very young group of athletes all of whom could have been competing in a u20 competition and the difference in strength and experience to the senior men they were racing could be seen. A tremendous effort by Chinedu Ndukwu, Tane Chambers, Alexander Morrell and Zuriel Nowgwugwu saw them finish 8th.
Our Senior women, similarly, only had one senior woman in the squad. Julia Newman, Amber Bloomfield and Asia El Mourtabite, all u20s, joined Chanelle Cole in the punishing event. Some tremendous individual efforts saw the team fight to a 5th place finish.
The highlight of the day though was in the event that’s being talked about across social media and being featured in Athletics Weekly. The u20 mix 4 x 400 was always going to be a hotly contested race and it did not disappoint. With the lead changing hands between our team and Birchfield and an absolute burn up in the last lap by Sam Mowa to run a 48.8 (pb of 49.09), our team of Sam, Ryen Rennie, Sophie Osborn and Alyssa Firla narrowly lost to Birchfield but in the process, both teams shocked the national all time rankings by moving to 5th and 6th respectively (2nd and 3rd in 2025 with only the GB juniors team going quicker).
Two medals, a lot of sore throats from the shouting and the screaming and a lot of happy and exhausted athletes made their way back to Bromley with only a quick pit stop to eat at a motorway services on the way. The day was a huge success and now that the National Relays are firmly on the competition calendar, we will ensure that we are bringing out more teams including some of our star senior athletes next year.
A huge thanks to the club for supporting the event and to the team managers (Tim, Helga, Joanne, Karen D and Karen B) for making it happen!
