High Peak AC enjoy impressive county medals haul

In total 14 HPAC juniors and four seniors competed with many winning medals and setting new personal bests with juniors winning three gold, eight silver and four bronze medals while the seniors managed to win five golds between them.

It began with gold success for Thomas Gilliver who ran a fine 9 mins 25 seconds in winning the U17 men 3km race.

Ex-High Peak athlete William Stanway from Combes (now with Trafford AC) was running in the U20 age category in the same race – the two ran side by side for the majority of the race before William showed some extra pace on the last lap to pull away to win gold in his age category.

There was further success on the Saturday for High Peak athletes with a gold for Hannan Dunkin in the U17 triple jump, setting a new PB of 9.08m and a national rank of 118, a super silver for Tom Boam and PB in the 200m in a time of 24.41 seconds and just missing out on a medal in the long jump, coming fourth.

Matty Miller competed in the U15 boys 800m in a very strong field coming in seventh, and also setting a PB of 2 minutes 33 seconds.

Alfie Fraser and Jack Taylor, in the U13 boys, competing strongly in the 100m and long jump, with Jack picking up his first of three medals at the champs – a long jump bronze.

And senior Keith Tolley defended his 100m title in the 100m masters (50-64 years age category), winning gold in 14.84 seconds.

Under 11s competed in the Derbyshire Quadkids competition involving four events of 75m race, long jump, javelin and 600m race.

Alfred Pritchard and George Murcott represented High Peak in the boys competition with Alfred winning the 600m to be crowned Derbyshire Quadkids champion with 208 points, four ahead of second place.

George finished fifth, a brilliant result in his first athletics competition, and Georgie was a very pleasing fifth in the girls Quadkids.

There were more medals and PBs from the other High Peak athletes competing on the Sunday, with one of the highlights being silvers for Imogen Wilson in both the 300m U17 women’s race (setting a PB) and the long jump.

Xavier Morgan won bronze in the U17 men’s 1500m with a PB, and Jack Taylor won two more medals, a bronze in the U13 boys Javelin and a silver in the 4 x 100m relay along with Charlie Wardle, Charlie Hanshaw and Alfie Fraser.

The two Charlies had a good day smashing their PBs in the 800m U13 boys race, and Charlie Wardle also setting a new PB in coming fifth in the shot put.

Alfie and Jack completed a very active weekend for them by also running in the 100m race.

Matty Miller ran in the U15 boys 1500m, coming in seventh but with his second PB of the weekend of 5 minute 5 seconds.

Tom Boam was fourth in the U17 Men 200m, Hannah Dunkin (U17 women’s) also competed in the Javelin as did Jess Dilks in the 1500m U13 girls – sadly injury meant they could not finish, but great effort from them nonetheless.

The final race of the championships was the masters 4 x 100m relay where once again the High Peak seniors of Andy Wilton, Gary Pritchard, Keith Tolley and Al Wilson sped their way round the track in front of a packed stadium stand to defend for the second time the county title won by HPAC in 2021 and 22 and remain champions.

The success culminated in county selection for a forthcoming Northern Inter-Counties U17/U15 match in York for Imogen Wilson, Thomas Gilliver, Tom Boam and Xavier Morgan.