The Commonwealth Heptathlon Champion Kelly Sotherton received the Birchfield Harriers Athlete of the Month award for April at a ceremony in the Harriers clubroom at the Alexander Stadium on Tuesday from the club’s Trustee and Chair of Finance Ainsley Bennett who competed in the first World Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 1983.
The Olympic bronze medallist won the accolade from her club mates in recognition of her magnificent performance in winning the Pentathlon silver medal at last month’s European Indoor Championships at the National Indoor Arena.
Sotherton improved by almost two hundred points to annihilate the UK and Commonwealth record and come within just seventeen points of inflicting the first defeat in five long years in a multi events competition on Sweden’s Olympic, World and European Champion Carolina Kluft after the greatest ever pentathlon competition with a 4,944 points score.
The 30-year old Birchfield Harrier was second with 4,927 points after twice exceeding her life time best to clear 1.88 metres in the High Jump and unleashing a massive career best performance of 14.57 metres in the Shot Put.
The Stagbearer led all the way from the gun in the crucially important fifth and final discipline and crossed the line first to complete a hat trick of indoor PB’s of a long and exhausting day of competition in two minutes 12:54 seconds. However Carolina Kluft was strong enough to finish exactly half a second behind Kelly in 2:13.04 which was sufficient to retain her crown albeit by the narrowest of margins in an exciting and enthralling competition.
Kelly was also presented with two AAA trophies and a quartet of club plagues from last year and a copy of the club history entitled “Fleet and Free” which features her Olympic bronze medal winning performance in Athens in 2004.
After had an enforced rest because of flu soon after the European Indoor Championships, Kelly is once more ready to lock horns with Carolina Kluft in five weeks time on the last weekend in May at Gotzis in Austria which is likely to be the highest quality Heptathlon this year apart from the World Championship to take place in the Japanese city of Osaka in late August.
Tom McCook
26 April 2007
At the age of only thirteen, Joshua Newman has been named Birchfield Harriers Athlete of the Month for June and in doing so becomes the youngest athlete to receive this accolade.
The teenager who lives in Aldridge followed his older brother Ben as a nine year old to the AGA Academy at the Alexander Stadium on Saturday mornings four years ago.
On his debut on the national stage, Joshua won a silver medal in the Under 13 Shot with a 10.55 metres put at the UK Athletics Young Athletes Final in September 2005.
In May of last year, Josh won his first ever Warwickshire County titles at Leamington Spa with a 12.01 metres put and a time of 13.1 seconds for the 100 metres sprint in the Under 13 age group. A fortnight later, he won the Midland Counties Quadrathlon title.
The youngster ended his first full outdoor campaign by winning the gold medal at the UK Athletics Young Athletes Final with an 11.62 metres put as well as placing runner up in the 100 metres and anchoring the 4x100m Relay to victory.
Last winter, the Arthur Terry schoolboy competed with considerable distinction winning a hat trick of gold medals in sports: hall competition at local, regional and national level. The young Stag was unbeaten in the Birmingham League at Stockland Green in the Shot Put, two lap race and the anchor leg of the Relay. Josh repeated this feat when he represented Birmingham at the West Midlands Regional Final at Worcester including winning the Shot Put by a margin of more than five metres.
In April, the Birchfield Harrier captained the Birmingham Under 13 team on an historic occasion at the national Indoor arena when Birmingham became the first team to complete a clean sweep of all the team titles.
Joshua began his outdoor season by winning both the Warwickshire and Midland Under 15 Shot Put titles in May under the tutelage of Andy Britton. On 3 June he improved by virtually a metre when he put the shot a massive distance of 14.22 metres at the Midlands Premier Young Athletes match at Cheltenham for which he was named Male Field Athlete of the meeting. This performance ranks him Number One in the Under 15 age group in the West Midlands and Number Six in the UK even though he will still be in the same category next year.
Sharon Morris, the Young Athletes Team Manager who initially coached Josh from the AGA Academy through to the club commented,
"We are extremely proud of Josh who we call "the gentle giant" and the patents who come out and support the lads think the world of him. He is always polite to every one, always smiling and always gives 100% to his performances. He thoroughly deserves this award.
Tom McCook
10 July 2007
