10:56am Sunday 17th August 2008
By Peter Phipps
BASINGSTOKE Biathle Team now boasts a number of current British, European and world tour medal winners.
No fewer than 11 of them have just qualified for the world biathle championships in South Africa in November.
Caroline Slimin heads the list after regaining the British over-40 title after a gap of two years. The 42-year-old won the masters A category at Salford Quays, Manchester, in an event which this year doubled as the European championships.
Although her British and European win gives her the right to regain the world crown she won in 2006, she says she will not be going to Cape Town, so there will be no chance to improve on last year's fourth place in Monaco, which followed her British silver medal finish.
She said: "Working in retail, I just can't take two weeks off and even the cost of five days, which would be the minimum required, is a lot of money."
Nevertheless, the Tadley-based mother-of-one was pleased with her win, even though competing at Salford was not in her competition schedule at the beginning of the year.
She said: "After the niggling hamstring injury last year, all my training hours this year have been in swimming.
"I wasn't going to do Salford, but I changed my mind, although I haven't been training for it, because I have been running really well."
Slimin beat team-mate and fellow qualifier Marnie Foden into the silver medal position by coming home to win in 10min 55.9sec in the run-swim-run event.
Slimin was second at the end of the first 1,000-metre run but took the lead in the 100m open-water swim and held it over the second 1,000m run.
The superb time followed her improved swimming times this year, which earned her fourth place in the British masters long-course 200m freestyle in Manchester.
She is hoping to improve on that with a medal at the British short-course championships in Sheffield on October 24 and, before that, she will prepare with a 3,000m open-water swim in Southsea on September 6.
The other local performers who earned selection for Cape Town on November 1 are fellow masters biathlete Mike Todd, seniors Laura Hook, Katie Carter, Michelle Matson and Andy Cackett and youths Neil King, Lizzie Neale, Hannah Parker and Keaton Phelps.
Todd, who also represented event sponsor HSF Health Plan, was the fourth Brit and fifth overall in the men's masters A category.
Hook, who has just graduated from Loughborough University, was the third-placed Brit in the senior women's event at the European championships and the sixth finisher in her race.
She was clocked at 17:21.9 after completing the two 1,500m runs and the 200m swim.
The 22-year-old,who lives in Kempshott and trains on a scholarship at Basingstoke Sports Centre, said: "I now just need to organise time off work and funding.
"My first run was slower then my second, but that was due to lack of confidence in my fitness. I went into the swim 12th in the field and came out in fifth place.
"I was overtaken in the first 500m lap of the final run and managed to defend my sixth place with a battle for the finish in the final 100m."
Carter and Matson were the fifth and sixth Brits and the eighth and ninth finishers overall among the senior women.
Cackett was the sixth Brit and ninth in the European standings but team-mate Stuart Dennis, who was one place behind, just missed out just missed Cape Town selection.
Neale collected silver in the youth D category for 11 and 12-year-olds, while Parker was an unlucky 13th.
The 11-year-old, who was pushed and took a bad fall in the first run, recently led a British one, two, three in the Italian leg of the Biathle World Tour and has gained selection for Cape Town because of that gold in Lignano.
Phelps, a county schools 200m champion in athletics, was fourth in the equivalent boys' race. The 12-year-old Brighton Hill Community College student from Kempshott finished the two 500m runs and the 50m swim in 5:20.1.
Joel Shepperd was 11th in the same race.
King was seventh in the age 13 and 14 race but selected on the strength of his medals in two world tour events.
Team-mate David Shepperd was ninth.
Sally Chui was eighth among the youth B girls, and Kieran Maynard was the ninth Brit in the equivalent 15 and 16 age band boys' race.
Team spokesman Matson said: "The whole team arrived a day early to train with the British team coach and it's really great to have so many Basingstoke athletes selected for the world championships."
Since opening the domestic biathle series at Bath in April, there have been a number of Basingstoke successes.
King, event debutant Joel Shepperd and Kieran Maynard were first, third and seventh in their respective races in Lignano.
Matson was the seventh senior woman and Sally Chui collected silver despite collapsing at the finish and requiring hospital treatment.
Jenna Waite was ninth in her age 15 and 16 race and Charlotte Coxhead was sixth among the 13 and 14-year-olds.
Two weeks later, England hosted the second event of the Biathle World Tour at Weymouth.
Slimin won her masters race and Carter and Matson were the first and second senior women home.
Another silver medal was collected by Cackett, while bronze medals went to Dennis, King and Phelps, in his biathle debut.
Maynard was fourth, Chui and Joel Shepperd fifth, Waite sixth and Sam Shepperd, in his first-ever biathle, was 11th.
With just Poole to go in the fourth and final event of the British series, Basingstoke biathletes hold first and second places in two categories - through Matson and Carter among the senior women and Foden and Slimin in the masters A category.
Cackett and Dennis are second in the senior men's standings, while King is second among the youth C boys.
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