Kent GP
Keith Dowson completed an emphatic defence of his Kent Road Race Grand Prix M60 title with age-group victory in the Ashford 10k on 12 October.
Keith's win was his sixth in the series, giving him the maximum possible 60 points.
The race was also the Kent Short Course Championship, so Keith secured all three county road titles, having won the Long Course equivalent at the Dartford Half in March.
And to put a further gloss on Keith's performance, his time in 49th place overall of 37:49 was a new M60 10k club record!
The full results from Ashford are here.
With the dust now settled on the 2025 Kent GP, of the 44 affiliated Kent clubs, SAC's women were 14th and men 17th in the team competition. Scorers for the women were Heather Fitzmaurice (40th), Nicolene Hanekom (64th), Sophie Day (84th), Silvia Forcat (174th) and Sam Znetyniak (202nd), and for the men, Keith (14th), Simon Hallpike (84th), Jake Mears (115th), Dan Witt (280th), Leonard Lai King (451st), Chris Desmond (474th) and Jon Copping (528th).
Heather was also 5th W55, while Simon, as 2nd M70, joins Keith as a medallist this year.
The first three Kent GP races of 2026 will be the Canterbury 10 on January 25th, where the 2025 awards will be made, the Deal Half on February 15th and the Paddock Wood Half on March 8th. These are in the calendar here.
The full KGP results and information is here.
Keith Dowson was the M60 winner of the ten race series of the Kent Road Race Grand Prix 2024 after four wins, two seconds and a third in the seven races he contested.
Also on the podium for the event, Caroline Fenwick was third W45 after winning the previous year's series.
In the team competitions, Sevenoaks' women finished sixth and men fourteenth out of forty-three affiliated Kent teams. The full results are here.
Presentation of the awards will take place following the Canterbury 10 on January 26th which will be the first race in the 2025 Kent Grand Prix. The list of the other races, including the Sevenoaks Seven, is here.
With the completion of the Sittingbourne 10 on 1st October, the final results are in from the Kent Road Race Grand Prix and, after some brilliant racing, Caroline Fenwick finished third woman overall and first W45.
Caroline led the Sevenoaks AC women to 8th place out of the 43 competing clubs, with points also contributed by Dawn Nunes, Julia Davis, Nicola Glover, Sally Shewell, Lucy Wilkes, Bridgit Weekes and Glenda Goscomb.
In the men's competition, SAC were 15th with points from Chris Desmond, Alan Male, Paul Fanti, Michael Lochead, Andy Nicoll, Andrew Hutchinson, Simon Hallpike, James Nash, Richard Alford-Smith, Sean Leith, Daniel Stewart, David Hale and Andrew Milne.
The full results are here.
The first four races of the 2024 GP are already selected:
21st January - Canterbury 10
18th February - Tunbridge Wells Half
3rd March - Paddock Wood Half (and the Kent Long Course Championships)
29th March - Folkestone 10 (the April event).
It is intended that the KGP 2023 awards will be after the Canterbury 10 race and those concerned will be notified in early January, with a complete list of all ten KGP events between January and October 2024 to be issued in a few weeks time. The details are here.
Lionel Stielow was confirmed as Kent M70 2022 Road Race Champion after completion of the final race of the 2022 Grand Prix series. Lionel was five points clear of his nearest rival with a further 23 would-be challengers also trailing in his wake.
Sevenoaks AC also had a medalist in the women's individual competition with Bridgit Weekes taking silver in the W55 category.
In all, 31 runners scored for SAC as follows:
Teams: Men 10th; Women 7th.
Individual
: All men - Andrew Mead 14th, Jamie Philip 42nd, Chris Desmond 87th (& 374th as Christopher Desmond), Paul Fanti 128th, Thomas Allen 134th, Ed Saunders 151st, Mike Lochead 165th, Alex Newby 171st, Darius Sarshar 177th, Johnny Mead 182nd, Harvey Taylor 190th, Gary Walsh 210th, Dan Witt 223rd, Richard Alford-Smith 275th, Seb Naughton 288th, Paul Elton 294th, Alan Male 346th, James Graham 385th, Simon Hallpike 413th.
: M40 - Jamie Philip 8th, Paul Fanti 23rd, Ed Saunders 44th, Mike Lochead 52nd, Alex Newby 59th, Dan Witt 77th, Paul Elton 84th, Robert Evans 93rd.
: M50 - Andrew Mead 4th, Darius Sarshar 30th.
: M60 - John Stevens 18th, James Graham 36th, Simon Hallpike 48th.
: M70 - Lionel Stielow 1st,
: All women - Rebecca Pickard 14th, Bridgit Weekes 29th, Caroline Fenwick 37th, Sally Shewell 39th, Jane Morgan 54th, Silvia Forcat 157th, Lucy Wilkes 160th.
: W35 - Caroline Fenwick 18th, Jane Morgan 38th.
: W45 - Rebecca Pickard 10th.
: W55 - Bridgit Weekes 2nd, Sally Shewell 5th.
: W65 - Sylvia Lewis 11th.
The full analysis is here.
KCAA have announced the eight races comprising the 2022 Kent Grand Prix which are:
March 13th - Paddock Wood Half
April 15th - Folkestone 10 miles
May 8th - Darent Valley 10k
June 5th - High Elms 10k
July 10th - The Sevenoaks 7
August 29th - Canterbury Half Marathon
September date TBA - Larkfield 10k
October 9th - Petts Wood 10k
Please check the dates before entering.
The details are here.