READING Athletic Club’s Ellie Gilder, Liani Springer-Thompson, Fatou Gaye and Kirsty Treglown ran a superlative 50.25 secs in the U15 Girls’ 4x100m at Bracknell – breaking a 44-year-old club record.

By five one-hundredths of a second, they set a new mark beating the one recorded back in 1974 by Sonia Pearson, Beverly Rollison, Sarah Hayes and Kathy Smallwood.

They were competing in the season’s first Youth Development League meeting for the lower age groups (U15 and U17).

Together with their colleagues from the girls and boys team they helped secure a victory for the team as a whole.

Also competing were Bracknell, Blackeath and Bromley, Southampton, Havering and Tonbridge.

  • READING’S Veteran athletes began their outdoor track and field season at Horspath.

The ladies covered the majority of events, while there were several gaps in the men’s team.

Nevertheless, both the ladies and men did well to finish fourth out of eight teams on the evening, and three men’s club records were broken or equalled.

Reading’s men were very successful in the 100m. In the M35 A race Jason Garraway, who has very recently become a veteran, clocked 11.9secs to finish fourth in a very close finish which saw the first four athletes all finish within 0.2secs. His time equalled the club record.

Men’s captain Justin Plank showed an excellent return to form to win the B race (12.8secs), while Hari Sewell took third in the M50 race (13.0secs).

Ron Davies, aged 75, was third in the M60 race, and his time (15.2secs) broke his own club record.

Davies went on to take third in the M60 long jump (3.36m).

There were three wins on the field, with two being secured by M35 all-rounder Kevin Cranmer (long jump 5.34m and high jump 1.65m).

Jan Drzewiecki was a comfortable winner of the M60 hammer and his distance of 32.73m broke the club record.

He went on to take sixth place in the shot (7.64m), while Cranmer was third in the M35 event (9.64m), and Michael Dzandu recorded 8.36m as a non-scorer.

Gerry O’Driscoll came sixth in both the M50 400m and 1500m (72.6secs and 6m 06.1secs).

Nick Huskinson was eighth in a fast M35 1,500m in 5:28.3.

The men finished the evening on a high, as the 4x100m relay team ran an excellent race with perfect handovers between Dzandu, Garraway and Sewell, and Cranmer brought the team home to victory in 50.6secs.

Ladies captain Lucy Daniells scored well for the club in multiple W35 events.

She took second place in the 100m A race (15.0secs), fourth in the 400m A race (70.7secs), third in the high jump (1.15m), and sixth in both hammer (11.55m) and javelin (10.20m).

Claire Mills was second in the 100m B race (15.7secs) and third in the long jump (3.57m), while Linda Church was fourth in the W50 race (16.5secs).

Sue Lowry came sixth in the W60 race (19.0secs).

Debutant Lee Fellowes finished second in the W35 400m B race (70.3secs), while Church secured the same position in the W50 race (79.9secs).

Reading’s ladies did well in the 1500m in a field of 20 runners.

Sarah Urwin-Mann ran strongly to finish third in the W35 A string in 5:21.6, while team-mate Sue Francis finished close behind to win the B race in 5:23.2.

Caroline Stevens ran well to be fifth in the W50, while Mills ran the 1,500m for the first time, as a non-scorer and recorded 6:07.8.

The relay team of Fellowes, Mills, Church and Daniells finished second (62.4secs).