European Championship success for Warrington Athletics Club

The Warrington Athletics Club duo were representing Great Britain at the European Masters Indoor Championships, which ran throughout last week in Torun, Poland.

Hicken rounded off her championships by helping the British team win bronze in the 4x200m relay race on Saturday alongside Angela Bryant, Sandra Mitusch and Susan Frisby.

The Warrington athlete ran the second leg and handed over with the team in first place and while they were overhauled by France and Germany, they still managed a podium finish.

Earlier in the championships, she had reached the 200m finals, where she recorded an age group personal best time of 31.39secs to finish fifth.

She had finished second in her heat in 31.58secs before her semi-final time of 31.72secs saw her finish third and take the fastest non-automatic qualifying spot for the final.

Hicken also ran in the over 60s 60m heats and despite her time of 9.42secs being just two-hundredths of a second outside her personal best, she could not progress to the next round.

Clubmate Watson competed in the men’s 3,000m and ran excellently to record a personal-best time of 11mins 21.79secs, which saw him finish seventh in the race.

Closer to home, there were three Warrington Athletics Club winners at Saturday’s West Cheshire AC open meeting at Ellesmere Port.

Tristan Tickle won his under 11s boys 75m race in a time of 23.9secs while Chris Fance took victory in the senior men’s shot putt with a throw of 7.08m.

Tristan Tickle with his gold medal (Image: Contributed)

Leah Poole was also victorious in the under 13s 150m in 21.9secs while she also came home second over 75m in 11.2secs, with both times just outside her personal bests.

There were two other Warrington members in action at the meet, with Thomas Darbyshire finishing second in his under 15s 200m race in 27.8secs while a time of 2mins 26.4secs saw under 17s runner Sarah Ashcroft place third in the women’s 800m.

Saturday also saw a team of six represent the club in the North of England six-stage road relay in Manchester, combining to finish in 31st place.

Rachel McQuillan led the team off on the long first stage, clocking 29mins 13secs before handing over to Alison Roberts, who completed the second stage in 17mins 52secs. Caroline Jones then clocked 20mins 45secs on the third leg to hand over to Faye Lawton with the team in 19th.

Alison Roberts runs the second leg of the relay (Image: Contributed)

She then finished the second long stage in 35mins 22secs, with Ellen Turnbull clocking 18mins 49secs in the penultimate stage before Sharon Taylor rounded off a good team effort with a stage time of 23mins 46secs.

Rounding off the club’s weekend was Louise Blizzard, who celebrated her England Masters call-up by completing the Wilmslow Half Marathon in 1hour 31mins 18secs – the third-fastest time in the women’s over 45s age group and the 43rd-fastest women’s time overall.

Louise Blizzard in action during the Wilmslow half-marathon (Image: Contributed)

There were also four Warrington members in action among a high-class field at the Cheshire Elite 10km road race in Pulford on Sunday, with Jack Pilkington first to finish as he came home 84th in a personal-best time of 34mins 38secs.

He was followed home by Steve Watmough (127th, 36mins 9secs), Claire Andrew (194th, 19th woman, 39mins 56secs) and Georgina Walker, who was running for first-claim club Lymm Runners and finished the race in 45mins 22secs (223rd, 40th woman).

Steve Watmough in action during the Cheshire Elite 10k race (Image: Contributed)

In midweek, two of Warrington’s younger athletes represented Cheshire Schools in the inter-county cross country match against Merseyside – Eddie Walker finished 23rd in the boys’ race and Grace Rashud was 25th in the girls’ race.