BMC Festival of Miles – 22 August 2021 – Results and Report

REPORT

‘As the British Milers Club, we should have a meeting dedicated to miles’ said Pat Fitzgerald, and no one could really argue with that, and so the BMC Festival of Miles was born and got off to a fine start at a sunny Linford Christie stadium on Sunday 22^nd August.

The meeting was set up with BMC members representing Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and English regional teams and with an overall trophy for the first team. It made for exciting competition with BMC Mile Champion medals also being awarded. With individual champions, team awards and paced races the meeting blended the traditional BMC paced races with some new ideas.

Perhaps one of the best races of the days was the Andy Green U15 girl’s mile. This was won in 4:50.0 by English Schools champion Shaikira King whose time puts her second all time. Watching on were Andy Green’s sons David and Mike who had kindly donated the memorial money from their late father to the BMC, enabling funding of the meeting and a perpetual trophy in Andy’s name.

Visible from the Linford Christie stadium is the site of the White City track where Andy Green ran his fastest mile of 3:57.74 back in 1964 beating the then world record holder Peter Snell in the process. The magical challenge of the mile remains as strong today as it did then as illustrated by the men’s A race. At the bell Sam Stevens required sub 58s to break the mark and with the crowd egging him on he fell agonisingly short as the clock ticked over to 4:00.10. With a 3:41.1 PB in the BMC Grand Prix last week, it is surely only a matter of time before Sam joins second place Kyle Langford in the sub four club.

In the women’s mile Niamh Bridson Hubbard ran well clear of the field for 4:42.34. In contrast the U17 race named after BMC founder Frank Horwill produced one of the best finishes of the day with Ella Greenway winning in 4:51.20 from Kristi Foster, both overhauling Keira Brady-Jones who had led from the start. In the U20 race midland champion Freya Bennett took victory in 4:52.71.

The men’s U20 race was tightly bunched before English Schools champion Alex Melloy burst clear to win in 4:13.64 from Northern Ireland’s Dylan McBride who clocked 4:14.55. Another ESAA champion Dan Galloway took the U17 race in 4:14.67 reversing his defeat to George Keen in the England Championship, George took second in 4:17.57. The trophy won by Dylan is named after Peter Coe, father and coach to former mile world record holder Seb.

An early start to travel from Scotland was rewarded with an U15 win for Oliver Patton in 4:27.4 a time that indicates a 1500 PB could be in store at next week’s Scottish championship. Down the field U13 Fred Jones ran 4:51.84. the fastest U13 mile listed on power of ten all time. At the other end of the age groups James Thie took a break from commentating to clock a Welsh mile masters record of 4:23.91 in the men’s B race.

The meeting ended with presentation of the team award, taken narrowly by the South form a strong Northern Ireland team.

The BMC hope that the festival of miles will become an annual event and there was no shortage of enthusiasm for that idea from departing athletes and spectators.

A biography of Andy appeared in Athletics Weekly HERE

RESULTS

Races: 10
Finishers: 72
PBs: 51 (71%)
Power of Ten results: Here