News Report 3rd December 2005

A team of athletes from Bro Dysynni A.C. ventured to Lanzarote recently for the sixth year in succession to take part in the 4-race La Santa challenge. The 4 race series, run over consecutive days, consist of a 10k road race, a 13k ridge run, a 5k beach run and finally a punishing 23k trans-island run.

A total of eight Dysynni athletes competed in all 4 events whilst a further five competed part of the challenge and, for the first time ever, Dysynni athletes claimed victory in two of their age categories at the event. Pride of place must therefore go to the Llanelltyd duo of Brenda Jones and Roy Peel who claimed victory in their respective female 60-64 and male 75+ categories. In the female 60-64 age group a combined overall time for the 4 races of 4hrs 29.14mins claimed victory for Brenda by over 10 minutes from the nearest age group challenger whilst a combined time of 5hrs 45.35mins ensured victory for Roy Peel, and double delight for the Llanelltyd couple.

Elsewhere, the remaining 6 Dysynni athletes to complete the challenge also placed well in their age groups. A combined time of 3hrs 08.24 claimed 2nd place for Steve Gilliland of Tywyn in the male 40-44 category, whilst 3hrs 35.43 claimed 3rd place for Tony Hodgson of Llanelltyd in the male 55-59 group. Andrea Goode of Arthog claimed 9th in a very competitive female 35-39 class in 3hrs 53.41mins whilst Nick Bradley of Dolgellau finished in 13th place in the male 55-59 group in 4hrs 10.03mins.

There was an excellent 4th place in the female 40-44 group for Juliet Edwards in 4hrs 21.04mins whilst another Dolgellau based athlete, Roma Charlwood, also claimed 4th, on this occasion in the female 25-29 category in a time of 4hrs 28.43mins.

Two Dysynni athletes, Bob Chilton of Hermon and Tom Roberts of Dolgellau, completed the first 3 events in respective times of 2hrs 09.43mins and 2hrs 15.42mins whilst Delyth Edwards also of Dolgellau completed the 10k and 5k events in a combined time of 1hr 35.13mins.

The two single race competitors were Graeme Stringer of Arthog, completing the 10k stage in 53.49mins whilst Frankie Vaughan of Dolgellau completed the 5k beach run in 24.14mins.

In the team events, which attracted teams from across Europe, there was a terrific 5th place finish for the ladies team whilst the men still claimed a creditable 12th place finish.

Andy Unwin