This has been a remarkable year for the setting of Bicester AC new club records. A further two Bicester AC club records were either broken or equalled at last Wednesday’s penultimate Oxford City AC track and field meeting at Horspath. As is normally the case with open meetings athletes are put in to heats based on ability and not age. In the 300m Appiahkorang-Mensah was placed in the fastest heat and ran a superb race to finish in 2nd place, 1.54secs behind the winning under 23 male athlete from Oxford City AC. Appiahkorang-Mensah’s time of 38.46secs was also a new Bicester AC club under 15 boy’s record. It was also his first under 15 boy’s EA PB level 9 clocking which is English Athletic’s top level standard.
Appiahkorang-Mensah had little more than an hour’s rest when along with clubmate Goerge Hart he contested the second of five heats of the 1500 metres. It was an extremely close contest between the two athletes who were locked into a battle for 6th place. In the event Hart just got the verdict with a new best of 4mins 34.23secs which is the fastest time 1500 metre run by any Bicester athlete this year and represents Hart’s best ever performance on the track. Appiahkorang-Mensah was just a hundredth of a second behind in an under 15 boy’s EA PB level 6 time of 4mins 34.24 secs. This was an also 5 second improvement on his previous best at 1500 metres, a superb effort given that this was his 2nd event of the evening.
Cyrus Ariana fresh from his SEAA bronze medal and 800m new club record on Sunday, came down in distance to contest the 200m. Running in heat 4 Ariana ran strongly for 3rd place knocking three tenths of a second off his previous with an EA PB level 6 mark of 27.3secs. This equalled the under 13 boy’s 200 metres and places him with an august selection of three other Bicester athletes with a 27.3secs clocking.
Georgia Bower has produced an impressive series of consistent jumping throughout the season and she again fared prominently in the long jump competition open to older age groups. Bower again jumped well for 4th place out of the 16 competitors with an EA PB level 5 jump of 4.81m and was bettered only by one female competitor on the night. Bicester AC’s Grace Jarvey finished 10th in the same event with a leap of 3.96m. Jarvey also produced another sub 30 second clocking in the 200m with an EA PB level 5 clocking of 29.28secs.
Oliver Jarvey continues to gain good experience and performed well up to form for a 14.59secs clocking in the 100m and a 3.64m leap in the long jump.