Tropicana 2001
July 28 Sutton Coldfield

Report by Ade Clift

Results

The Tropicana Gym now owned by LA Fitness, hosted the UK Tropicana Cross-training Championships on Saturday 28th July. The ladies Masters unfortunately provided only seven entries, not that it produced any less of a battle for the top three positions. Well done to Maryse Worrallo (2nd), who once again placed in the top three as she did at Stratford earlier this year.

The mens Masters now seems to be as hotly contested as the Open event with Ultra-fit medallists John Sherlock and Phil Talbot battling it out with local boy Chris Salmon, who seems to have dramatically improved this year (a good result for him at X-Zone too.) Even though some really quick times had been posted in the earlier heats, it was Chris Salmon who with a recorded time of 14 mins 20secs (only 19 secs outside Hywel's record ) put a 'spanner in the works' for Phil and John who were already going down the course.

At first glance it seemed to me that there were very few competitors in the ladies open event, but I think in retrospect it was due to lack of first time competitors, as most of the top ladies were there. Some really great battles were fought in the earlier heats with personal best times being recorded all over the place. I can't recall so many sub 17mins for the ladies. Michelle Parsons finished the year pretty much as she started it, showing most of the other ladies that they will have to train really hard if the want to beat her next year. Michelle defended her title with guts and determination but was pushed all the way to a personal best time by Christine Tooze, who has also had great success this year.

The mens Open event was always going to be keenly contested by last years Champ Kirk Gibbons, Lee Rankin and the netfit boys. Once again some fantastically quick times were being recorded by most competitors and 15 minute times were popping up everywhere. On a personal note, it was nice to see Phil McConnell (who I've trained over the past 6 or so years) finally get what he deserved with a fantastic 5th place and a PB time of 14 mins 50 secs - Well done Phil! So it was left to the last two heats, the penultimate consisting of Steve Quick and Ausie Adam Horder. The netfit boys were so closely matched, as they have been all year and pushed each other all the way to record the two fastest times ever on the course. Adam jumping off the treadmill first in an amazing time of 13 min 36 secs and Steve not far behind in 13 mins 54 secs. I thought it was quite funny when Stuart Leng had to repeat the times to the guys on the balcony 'yes, 13 mins 36 secs!'

The fun of the treadmill
Kirk Gibbons		Lee Rankin		Phil McConnell

This just left defending champ Kirk and our own Lee Rankin to battle it out in the last heat. Lee's bike hadn't started properly and so when it eventually did, he knew that he had a 30 second deficit to make up on Kirk. The boys battled hard with Lee eventually pulling level on the treadmill. This of course meant that he was in the lead, as he had a 30 second advantage and was evident by his celebration finger waving from about 200+ meters out.
I shouted at him that he only had 30 secs in order to beat Adam's time, which he did on this occasion and took a well deserved title and Championship record time of 13mins 34secs.

The team event like most years, proved to be fast and furious and nearly impossible to judge when everybody was going flat out for two events. Once again, some great times were posted in the earlier heats and it was left to the final two heats to decide the overall placings. We were fortunate in Team Future Fitness to have had Michelle Ford replace Michelle Parsons in our team and this meant that we could at least compete on equal terms with Michelle P's team, SIS. Equal proved to be the operative word as we ended up with exactly the same time by virtue of the fact that Lee Rankin had decided to tell Cassius Francson that he was going to run at 22.5kph for the first half, which he did (nearly killed him mind!).

In the last heat were the netfit boys who battled hard with the Babes from Hell. Because they knew what time they had to beat to win, it meant that the rest of the team could tell the runner how fast to go in order to do it. Fortunately for us and SIS, it was a step too far for Adam Horder who averaged an amazing 20.5kph all the way and eventually took the third place. 'Good bloke Adam Horder', always first to shake peoples' hands after the race saying that 'it's all good clean, honest fun'. Whether you are first or last if you give 100%, you are a winner!!

RESULTS
We've retyped this from the paper results list - spellings of names are as on the original! Errors and omissions excepted.

Ladies Masters
1 Jane Shields 18 18
2 Maryse Worrallo 19 13
3 Carmel Bassett 20 22
4 Susan Regan 21 57
5 Valerie Sharland 23 34
6 Charlie Clayton 25 21

Mens Masters
1 Chris Salmon 14 20
2 John Sherlock 15 11
3 Phil Talbot 15 17
4 Ray Thompson 15 58
5 Steven Watts 16 5
6 Leandra Natale 16 23
7 Gary Yates 16 47
8 Geoffrey Wiseman 16 56
9 Jerry Innes 17 22
10 Trevor Thompson 17 34
11 Simon Cox 17 41
12 Tony Bithel 17 56
13 Lance Hawksworth 17 59
14 Steve Newman 18 9
15 William Stocks 18 39
16 Kevin Bryan 18 57
17 Malcolm Dunne 19 0
18 Stephen Smith 19 2
19 Neil Chamberlain 19 4
20 Michael Edwin 19 41
21 Robbie Craig 19 47
22 Steve Hyland 19 57
23 Joseph Butcher 20 19
24 Gary Nicholls 20 27

Ladies Open
1 Michelle Parsons 15 11
2 Christine Tooze 15 44
3 Gill Watson 15 56
4 Jenni Russell 16 0
5 Rebecca Ceil 16 1
6 Tara Williams 16 6
7 Michelle Allmark 16 9
8 Lisa Cox 16 22
9 Michelle Ford 16 26
10 Alex Robinson 16 26
11 Mary Wong 17 49
12 Catherine Storer 18 38
13 Sarah Jane Kemp 19 55
14 Renee Nelson 19 57
15 Julie Seddon 20 21
16 Phillippa Armitage 21 24
17 Emma Bowen 21 55
18 Suzzanna Simms 24 13
19 Patricia Legan 26 27

Mens Open
1 Lee Rankin 13 34
2 Adam Horder 13 36
3 Steve Quick 13 54
4 Kirk Gibbons 14 4
5 Phil McConnell 14 50
6 Carl Tirrito 14 50
7 Phil Piggott 14 59
8 Charles Harris 15 9
9 Sean Lambert 15 15
10 Andrew Watson 15 17
11 Sam Codjoe 15 19
12 Cassius Frankson 15 26
13 Jimmi Wong 15 28
14 Phil Parsons 15 30
15 Gareth Turner 15 36
16 David Cox 15 42
17 Martin Carter 15 43
18 Sylburn Miller 16 0
19 Will Whitmore 16 8
20 Wayne Taylor 16 19
21 Richard Jenkins 16 28
22 Paul Cooper 16 30
23 Carl Spibey 16 39
24 Matthew Brett 16 42
25 Ceri Whitmore 16 42
26 John Percy 16 44
27 Wilburt Bennett 16 46
28 Sam Bateson 16 47
29 Gary Jones 16 48
30 Barry Messam 16 58
31 Patrick Phypps 17 2
32 Mark Shaw 17 4
33 Robert Hilton-Wilson 17 8
34 Ade Clift 17 14
35 David Coard 17 20
36 Richard Hanson 17 30
37 Laurence Rollins 17 40
38 John O'Shea 18 5
39 Jeff Leigh 18 9
40 Simon French 18 15
41 Matthew Purchase 18 17
42 Alan Storrow 18 24
43 Simon Bellinger 18 39
44 Daniel Carter 18 51
45 Paul Leonard 19 17
46 Anthony Meehan 19 27
47 Richard Vidgen 19 51
48 Kevin Easley 20 2
49 Tim Oliver 20 8
50 Mark Phillips 20 18
51 Pele Reid 20 26
52 Tony Corbett 20 33
53 Keith Ferrari 20 36
54 Paul Dobbs 21 22
55 Mark Bell 21 29
56 Mark Bailey 22 22
57 Tom Whitmore 23 20
58 Wayne Turner 26 52

Team
1 Future Fitness 12 6
1 Team SIS 12 6
3 Netfit.co.uk 12 10
4 United Extremes 12 29
5 DB Max 12 30
6 LA Fitness 12 42
7 Combined Effort 12 59
8 Mix 2 13 0
9 Dave's Devils 13 2
10 Five Pack 13 14
11 Future Fitness 2 13 37
12 BG Max 13 45
13 Mix 1 13 52
14 Fitwise 14 13
15 David Lloyd (Solihull) 14 14
16 Calso 14 21
17 Team Juice Plus 14 25
18 Bev's Rejex 14 29
19 Natural Edge 14 36
20 Boxfit 15 28
21 Daventry Young Ones 16 44
22 Fitness First 17 11