Peter Molloy, JK 2017 Middle Distance champion

Pete Molloy was in red-hot form as he made it two wins in a row at the 2019 Jan Kjellstrom Festival, in Kent, on a day when FVO athletes won nine championship medals.

Pete backed up yesterday's Sprint victory with a one minute winning margin in M18E, finishing in 26.58, ahead of David Bunn (TVOC) and Flurry Grierson (Devon.

On his Attackpoint blog, he was reasonably happy with his performance, saying “It was a tad scrappy today, buut I'm very pleased with the result. I set off hard but made a very marginal parallel error to #2, , then faffed at #5 with the dodgy veg boundary but I settled down a bit after that”.

Clare Stansfield successfully defended her W20S title, however, with a better quality of opposition this year, was only able to forge a 16 1/2 minute lead this time (20.09), but is well set for another overall JK title.

Graham Gristwood (M21E) and Grace Molloy (W18E) had to settle for silver this time, but Grace is well in touch in her class, a time of 22.54 15 seconds off the lead., which is held by Fiona Bunn (TVOC). GG's time of 33.59 was 25 seconds off the lead of Peter Hodkinson, but as he's saving himself for the relay on Monday by not entering the Long race, GG won't be winning the overall title this time.

Fiona Hendrie was intially placed 3rd in W55S, coming home in a time of 36.03, bu was subsequently upgraded to the Silver medal, as athletes ahead had incomplete timing splits.
There wre Bronze medals for Roger Goddard (his 18th at the JK) and Lizzie Stansfield (her 14th in just six JK appearances), which garnished the day, and likewise on the shorter courses, there were bronzes for Rachel Hendrie (W21S) and Eilidh Connor (W10B), her first medal at championship level.

Off the podium postions, there were fine top ten runs from Chris Smithard (5th in M21E, equalling his best-ever Middle distance showing at a JK), Ben Stansfield (4th in M50L), Jon Cross (6th in the same race), James Hammond (6th in M14A), Kathy Klaka (9th in W35S) and Jamie Connor (9th in M12A).