From Caroline:
“Looking back over the Inter Area Competition this last weekend what spirit our team showed!
We finished 4th in the combined scoring out of 9 teams.
Midland Masters won with 574 points
Eastern Masters got 556 points
VAC 481.50
NMAC 461
Full results are on BMAF OpenTrack and in another post on our website.
Ladies were 3rd out of 9 teams
Midland Masters 294 points
Eastern Masters 264 points
NMAC 255 points
Men were 6th out of 9 teams
Eastern Masters 292 points
Midland Masters 280 points
VAC 243 points
Southern Counties 240 points
Welsh Masters 216 points
NMAC 206 points.
We always struggle with filling our teams as we have a long way to travel and it’s 2 weekends in a row! Paul our team manager drives from Devon for the day. Amazing! His commitment to and enthusiasm for our team is so appreciated.
We can do better though. Ladies’ 3rd was good and made possible by many, many ladies doing multiple events. Wendy Valentine did the most individual events -6! It helped of course to have gladiatorial Nia amassing 42 points in her individual events!
The men also showed a lot of guts. Apart from winners Steve Linsell, John Twiddle and Dan Brown we had athletes doing unaccustomed events just for the points and some like Andrew England and Chris Corcoran doing multiple events . Dan actually came 2nd in the walk as well as 1st in the TJ, 4th in LJ and 6th in 400m! Our team manager Paul Barlow did the walk and got 4th. We hope he will recover well after from his fall in the relay- he heroically got up and passed the baton.
However we were missing a lot of our top men who could have added massive points. If we are to win the Outdoor Inter Area, which we can, we need everyone available.
Thanks to Marcia and Gracie Rutter for the photos on Facebook.”
Paul Kanna Barlow is 
feeling proud.
“So proud of both teams today, 4th overall is really good considering the distance we have to travel. My first event as Women’s Team manager and we finished 3rd, that is absolutely amazing, so happy with that, and so proud of you all, you smashed it today.
The men finishing 6th despite everybody competing so well and with most events filled, I thought we’d be higher up but the standard of the opposition is high, to win it, like we did in 2022 at the outdoors”
“Such a great day for my beloved Northern Masters Athletic team, but unfortunately I am pretty broken physically.
Straight from the 2000 metre race walk, no time to change into my racing spikes, I fell horribly at full speed during the 4 x 200 metre relay, I held on to the baton, got up sprinted to Kristian and passed it on successfully, he overtook and we finished our heat in 2nd.
The fall was heavy on my knee, where the impact feels sore but above it is swollen and I can’t really walk, like my knee cap moved up sharply damaging ligaments or something, my ribs are so sore too, not sure what I did to them, bruised or broken, hurts when I breathe and I feel nauseous sometimes. So hard driving home from London.
The curse of the Northern Masters men’s indoors team continues, Jon hospitalised 2 years ago, Jed hospitalised last year, me falling this year, hopefully no where near as bad as my team mates but ouch! Worth it though for the team.”
