A race official standing in his lane robbed Southend AC's Essex under-17 400m champion Adam Shaw of a chance to run for gold in the Southern Counties Championships at Watford.

Coming off the top bend into the final straight of his heat Shaw, who had the misfortune to be drawn in lane eight, was confronted by the sight of the official standing in his lane.

Despite the athlete shouting at him three times, all to no avail, the official remained rooted to the spot.

Shaw was faced with the dilemma of running into lane seven and impeding the athlete in that lane -- with certain disqualification -- or stopping.

He basically had no choice but to stop.

With very tight qualification for the final -- winner of each of the five heats plus three fastest losers -- there was no leeway for Shaw and an appeal brought him no hope.

An apology from the official hardly compensated for ruining his racing weekend.

It was not all doom and gloom for Southend athletes, many of whom acquitted themselves well.

Tristan Davison, 14, was the star of the show, collecting not one, but two silver medals with his splendid 12.63m shot putt -- a national grade one standard -- and 34.34m in the discus (grade two).

Adam Hickey collected yet another club age record as well as a silver medal for a very nippy 4min 04.10sec in the under-17 1500m.

In the girls' under-15 group both Natasha Bailey (4m.58.05 1500m) and Zoe Young (29.95m javelin) earned themselves personal bests, both at grade two.

In the boys' under-15 group Keiron Quinn set himself a new best mark of 2.17.14 in the 800m (grade three) while big brother Dan earned a grade one for his vastly improved 800m time of 1.58.68s -- just 1.48 seconds away from the age-16 club record.

Published Friday, May 30, 2003

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