AFTER three days of competing, over the last two weeks, 24 Tavistock Athletic Club athletes have been crowned county champions in their chosen events.

The total medal haul for the club included in the Devon and Cornwall county championship 24 gold, 10 silver, five bronze and more than 31 personal best performances. With the track season starting to really hot up this puts many of the club athletes in strong positions, looking for selection in the forthcoming county teams and later this month the schools’ competitions.

Some of the club athletes have already achieved the elusive national qualifying standards which will see them competing at either Gateshead or Bedford against the best in the country in two months time. 

The club has a long history of producing some of the best athletes not only in the South West but nationally. This would not be possible without the support and dedication of the coaches and officials like Mike Dobson, Tammie Ryder, Dave Chanter, Louise Shipton, James Mills, Mhairi McCall, Alistair Kinsey and many, many more.

Singling out some of the superb performances, Jennifer Sabine — U20’s 3,000m county champion and setting a new course record at Exeter; triple county champions Ben Pitts, Josh Davies, Benjamin Rogers and, to cap it all, Luke Cressy won four golds, including the combined events, making him a quadruple county champion.  Luke is also the number one high jumper in the Uk in the U15 age group.

Tess Masselink won gold in the Cornish County Championships U20 women 2,000m steeplechase, running a time of 6 minutes 42.1 seconds which currently ranks her 3rd in the senior women’s’ rankings in the UK.

With this being an Olympic year, are we starting to see some of the future crop of Olympians in our own area?

Its not just the TAC youngsters, the club also has Bob Chapman, the veteran 65 1,500m county champion.

‘I took it steady this year’ — why Bob? ‘Well I’ll be 70 in a few months.’