Athletics: Sponsor needed to lift hopes of women’s team

Aug 4 2007 by Bob Cypher, South Wales Echo

CARDIFF AAC’s women’s team travelled to Scotland this weekend intent on a damage limitation exercise in their final UK Women’s League meeting of the season.

Lying in last place, they know they are unlikely to perform the sort of heroics that would see them escape the drop back into the second division.

After last season’s elation came this year’s reality when it was painfully obvious that unless the team can obtain a sponsor, it is likely to yo-yo backwards and forwards between the second and first divisions.

The club has the talent, both experienced and emerging, to do well next season and could even win promotion to the top flight again but the cruel fact is that they would almost certainly fall back again, competing against athletes from clubs happy to pay performance-related expenses – one club offers £15 for every point he or she achieves.

A modest fee perhaps but an athlete achieving a win (eight points – £120), a second place (seven points – £105) and even an eighth place (one point – £15) could pocket £240 for an afternoon’s work.

But Cardiff cannot compete with the sort of quality athletes some clubs attract with those incentives.

Cardiff team manager John Penny has battled all week to get enough athletes to cover half the 34 events, knowing that the penalty for not doing so would be that the women’s team would be forced to compete in the qualifying match which, if they were to do badly, could result in them losing their league status altogether.

To date, he had filled 27 positions and is hoping no-one else drops out.

“We are struggling but we have to look forward and hope next season doesn’t bring the same number of injuries and fixture clashes which have affected us so much this season,” said Penny.

Team

100m: Anoma Sooriyaachchi, Melanie Stephenson.

200m: Stephenson, Leanne Martlow.

400m: Samantha Gamble, Felicity James.

800m: Leila James.

1500m: Bethan Strange.

3000m: Katherine Humphreys.

100mH: Lucy Lougher, Gemma Goulbourne.

400m H: Lougher, Goulbourne.

LJ: Imogen Miles.

TJ: Miles, Goulbourne.

PV: Jessica Abrahams.

Shot: Rachel Cork, Beth Sewell.

Discus: Cork, Sewell.

Hammer: Sewell, Bea Morris.

Javelin: Lianne Clarke, Cork.

4x100m: Sooriyaachchi, Stephenson, Lougher, Gamble.

4x400m: Lougher, James, Gamble, James.