BASC awards to go to Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Rikkie Letch and Julien Raffali

It was announced at the BASC's 2010 AGM that the Female Young Athlete of the year award is to go to Katarina Johnson-Thompson with the Male Young Athlete Award going to Rikkie Letch. The BASC Ron Pickering Coaching Award is to go to Julien Raffali. Katarina, from Liverpool Harriers, led from start to finish on her way to gold in the heptathlon at last year's World Youth Championships in Bressanone, winning 6 out of 7 events and totalling 5,750 points, the second highest of all time. Amongst her other achievements in 2009 she was also gold medallist in the AVIVA England Athletics U17 Indoor Championships in both high jump and long jump.  Rikkie, from Windsor Slough Eton and Hounslow, topped the 800m rankings for the second year in succession in 2009 as well as ranking 8th in the 1500 metres, and has moved into the top ten all-time U17 rankings for the 800m. In 2009 he reached the semi-finals of the World Youth Championships. Julien Raffali coaches Holly Bleasdale and Katie Byers, two of the top 10 merit-ranked female pole vaulters in the country. He also coaches Andrew Sutcliffe, the top ranked junior male in the country and who finished 4th in the European Junior Championships in Novi Sad. In addition Julien has organised Vault Manchester for the past couple of years and regularly takes groups of young athletes to France to compete in the French elite indoor pole vault series. Congratulations to our award winners who will be receiving our awards from us soon. We will shortly be announcing this year's Susanna Ingram disability athlete award winner as well as the first winner of the Ron Jewkes Cup. The latter is a new award to be made to a junior male athlete for an outstanding championship pereformance and is to be made by the club in memory of one of the great characters of the club and of track and field officialdom.

Saturday November 13th 2010

Make a date in your diary! Cancel all other engagements! Details to follow...................

Club structure

Members will have read in the latest issue of "Backtrack" that the club's committee has proposed that the club incorporate as a Company Limited by Guarantee. This was unanimously agreed at the recent Annual General Meeting. For more details please see here.

New Year's honours

The start of 2010 has already brought well-deserved honours for Jean Pickering and David Littlewood (MBEs) and Chris Cohen (CBE), to whom we send many congratulations.

Twitter and Facebook

You can now keep up to date with club activities and discuss all that is going on in the world of track and field by checking the club's Twitter page here. We are also on Facebook - find us by searching for BASCSupporter.

Roald Bradstock BASC polo shirts

We are pleased to now offer for sale to all BASC members a limited-edition white polo shirt with the BASC logo on one breast and a reproduction of the specially commissioned design (see right) by former javelin champion Roald Bradstock ("the Olympic Picasso") on the other. Only 150 of these shirts will be produced and sold, with each shirt being individually numbered. Having already offered these for sale to those members present at the recent BASC dinner, where the original artworks were auctioned, we are now making them available to all members whilst our limited stocks last. These shirts are available for £15 including postage and packing, and can be purchased in Small, Medium, Large, XL and XXL. A limited number in extra small may be available. Cheques, made payable to "British Athletics Supporters Club", should be sent to 91 Croesonen Parc, Abergavenny, Mon. NP7 6PF. Please mark your envelope Bradstock Shirts and please indicate the size(s) you require.

Paul Dickenson takes the mic

Over 70 BASC members joined celebrated BBC TV athletics commentator and former Olympian Paul Dickenson for an excellent evening of food, company and conversation at the club's 2009 Annual Dinner in Birmingham. Thank you to everyone who attended, especially Paul and his long-time friend (and sparring partner!) Chris Black for being such entertaining guests. Those present will be aware that the evening ended with the auction of two exclusive artworks designed for and donated to the club by Roald Bradstock. Roald was twice a British Olympian, in Los Angeles in 1984 and Seoul in 1988, and was the first British javelin thrower to break the 90 metre barrier with the "Old Rule" javelin in 1985. A year later he was the first man in the world to break the 80 metre barrier with the "New Rule" javelin. Since retiring Roald has developed his art skills and further details of this aspect of his talents can be found on his website at www.roaldbradstock.com .

The great outdoors

We have some venue information for those who may be attending the major UK domestic showpiece events for the first time (or for those who are just a little rusty!) here.

Awards bonanza in Bedford

British Athletics has got talent and, on a hot summer's day when Bedford felt more like Barcelona, we were delighted to recognise it and to present four individuals with their awards from the club. Jean Pickering herself was on hand to assist us. More details can be found here.

Rushgrove a record-breaker in Manchester 

Former BASC Susanna Ingram Award winner Ben Rushgrove has broken the championship record in the men's T36 100m at the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester in a time of 12.47s, beating the world record holder Main Che from China in the process. We have sent Ben a message of congratulations from the club on his fine achievement.

AVIVA supports the BASC

As members who were present at the club's recent AGM will be aware, we are delighted to announce that AVIVA (formerly Norwich Union), principal sponsors of UK athletics, have made a very significant donation to BASC funds in order to help defray expenses in promoting athletics to supporters and potential supporters alike. We would like to express our grateful thanks to them for this very generous donation and for their ongoing support of athletics in the United Kingdom. We look forward to further developing the relationship that has been established with them over the years ahead.

Christine's our runaway winner

Photograph courtesy of Richard Lane In the end it was no contest. Although votes were cast for several other worthy candidates it was no surprise that BASC members voted Olympic 400 metre champion Christine Ohuruogu their British Athlete of the Year for 2008 by a considerable margin. BASC Chairman Philip Andrew managed to achieve what Sanya Richards couldn't do in Beijing and caught up with the golden girl herself inside a darkening National Indoor Arena in Birmingham after the AVIVA Indoor Grand Prix to present her with her award from the club. Thanks to Fast Track for their help in organising the presentation of this award. Congratulations Christine and we all look forward to cheering you on in your defence of the World title in Berlin this summer.

Fantasy athletics

For those sports fans who regularly pit their wits with fantasy football and other sports, our Yearbook Editor Richard Cooper has a website at www.fantasyathletics.co.uk in which you can test your knowledge against fellow athletics fans in a free-to-enter fun contest.

Photos wanted

As always we'd like to get more photos sent in from members to go up on this site - they can be of you meeting athletes, photos from an indoor or outdoor meeting, whatever you like. Send them to us at info@basclub.org.uk and we'll put them up.

BASC Yearbook

We are always looking to improve the quality and content of the publications we send to our members. Our new Yearbook Editor Richard Cooper would like to hear your views on our annual Yearbook: what you like about it, what you don't and how you might feel it could be improved. Contact him on richard.cooper.1976@googlemail.com so that we can take your views into consideration.