The Ellis Trophy and the Endurance Trophy are the County Association’s most prestigious. As the name implies, the Endurance Trophy is awarded to the best endurance performance by a County athlete anywhere in the world and the Ellis Trophy goes to the best performance other than endurance.
The winners for the last season are Omar Ahmed of Birchfield Harriers (Endurance, pictures above) and Elliot Giles also of Birchfield Harriers (Ellis). Congratulations to both lads for winning these awards.
Read on for more details.
Warwickshire Ellis and Endurance Trophies.
With the 2020 Track & Field season in Britain being pretty much a non event because of COVID 19, I was not expecting to be able to make any decisions on who I should choose as the winner of the Ellis Trophy. But our best athletes were still able to compete abroad. I have therefore had a very difficult choice between three brilliant Warwickshire athletes. A previous holder of the Ellis Trophy, Andrew Pozzi competed in many events abroad which included a first place in the 60mts hurdles in Madrid in February, with a time of 7.48s, and a 13.14s 110 mts hurdles for a second place to Spain’s Orlando Ortega, in Monaco in August. Elliot Giles, previous four times winner of the British Championship title, ran his PB for 800 mts (1.44.56) when finishing a close second to Kenya’s Ferguson Rotich, in the Diamond League meeting at Doha in September. Meanwhile, back on home ground, Craig Murch was able to take part in a socially distant British Championship which was held at Manchester, where he won his first national title, winning the Hammer Throw with 73.24 mts.
Three brilliant performers, and Warwickshire is most fortunate to have such high class athletes. But a nightmare to decide who to award the Ellis Trophy to. After much deliberation, I have decided in favour of Elliot Giles to be awarded the Ellis Trophy for 2020, with a big “well done” to Andy and Craig.
The Endurance Trophy this year I found to be a more straightforward decision. COVID 19 put a stop to most events both here in the UK and abroad. So I am left to make the decision based on cross country events held before the pandemic struck. My choice of the athlete to be awarded this trophy is Omar Ahmed, of Birchfield Harriers. Omar was a clear winner of the Warwickshire cross country title, and then he went on to win the Midland title. In the “National”, Omar finished in 14th place which is of course a very fine performance. So I award Omar the Endurance Trophy for 2020.
Bob Carey. Warwickshire AA President 2020.