Project 2012 - 2012 Season

The final year of the Project 2012 initiative was a good one.

The older members of the group showed that they are among the best in the world, let alone Great Britain, in their age group, and the addition of Loic Malroux and Mae Thompson to the ranks demonstrated that talent is coming through the ranks at Momentum Sports.

For the highlight of the year, it is hard to look past Richard Holt and Andy Robinson's high places in the global rankings for their events.

Richard Holt

Richard’s season was his most successful for over a decade, with his fastest times in the 200m, 110m Hurdles and 400m Hurdles since he was 24 years old. His 400m Hurdles time of 56.86 proved to be the 7th fastest in the world for the V40 age group as of the end of September, earned him the silver medal at the British Masters Championships, and was a Blackheath and Bromley club record for V40!

His best BAL result for the club also came in that event – achieving 3rd in the B-String in the 2nd match of the season.

Chris Hall

Chris had a tough year, and adapting successfully a new event (400m) took much longer than anticipated. Despite no PBs during the Summer, Chris reached the finals of four events in the Welsh Indoor and Outdoor Championships, winning Bronze medals in Long Jump (Indoor) and 400m (Outdoor). He also reached 4th place in the top points scorers for Kingston and Poly’s British Athletics League Team since 2003.

Chris is hoping that he can use the experience of the disappointing 2012 season to push on next year and break a few Personal Bests.

Humphrey Waddington

Injuries and work commitments unfortunately limited Humphrey’s involvement during the 2012 season. Despite the setbacks, he managed to record jumps of 14.13 and 6.74 in the Triple Jump and Long Jump respectively, and helped Kingston and Poly to the annual Sward trophy (awarded for field events) in April.

Humphrey’s managerial ‘career’ continued to be a success, as his Rosenheim team took their tally of successive match wins to 20, and won the Final of the Western Division.

Tom Parry

Having had a major knee injury minimising high-quality competition since the end of 2009, Tom announced his comeback with a massive 400m Hurdle PB and a new best over 400m. The hurdle event saw Tom win a Silver medal in the Senior Surrey Championships, come in a solid 5th place in the Senior Welsh Championships final, and score very good points in a very-competitive British Athletics League division.

Towards the end of the season, Tom suffered another knee injury, but this is already being sorted and hopefully won’t have too big an impact on his Winter and 2013 Summer season.

Molly Renfer

Molly’s season took place mainly in the USA, as she began her education at Havard University. A solid but unspectacular season saw her achieve indoor PBs for 400m and 800m, but slightly disappointing outdoor results. Nevertheless, Molly came in an impressive 5th place in the U20 Women’s 800m Final during the England Under 20 Championships, and represented her new university in a number of competitions.

Loic Malroux

Being a decathlete, Loic established himself during his debut season with Kingston and Poly as a very useful all-rounder – particularly in the Long Jump, 110 Hurdles, High Jump and Shot Put during the BAL campaign.

During the 2012 season, Loic scored Personal Bests in 7 of the 10 decathlon disciplines – as well as a new best decathlon points total – and 6 of the 7 track events that he competed in resulted in PBs (60m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 60mH, 110mH). The Surrey Indoor Championships in March also saw Loic win Gold in the Pole Vault, Silver in the High Jump and 60m Hurdles, and Bronze in the Shot Put.

Andy Robinson

Andy has not been able to compete as frequently as he’d hoped due to work commitments, but he has still performed to a superb level for his age group – his time for the 5000m puts him in the top 15-20 in the world for the V45 age category. Andy has also contributed to Kingston and Poly’s success in the British Athletics League, placing highly in the 3000m and 3000 steeplechase, and he has continued to be a very strong performer in cross country and long-distance events during the winter months.

Mae Thompson

The latest addition to the Project 2012 team (now the Silver group of the Momentum Sports Academy) has come on leaps and bounds in the last couple of years, and came of age in 2012. Mae achieved personal bests in the 200m, 300m Hurdles and 400m Hurdles – she ranked 27th in the UK for the 300m Hurdles, and 12th for the 400m Hurdles in her age group. She was also a prominent member of Kingston and Poly’s Young Athletes’ teams, helping the mixed and all-girls teams win their respective divisions.

Craig Price

The 2012 athletics season was a disjointed one for Craig. Early season niggles meant results didn’t go quite as planned during the first few months of the year, and work commitments limited him to only 3 competitions beyond May.