This year saw only one day of competition after a second day cancellation due to adverse weather conditions causing flooding.
Nevertheless the 11 girls and boys that were in attendance acquitted themselves well with 7 pb’s and 4 medals (3 gold and a bronze).
Girls
We had four girls competing in the heats of the 150m, Abigail Babalola, Orla Stanczyk, Cerys Daniels (PB) and Shawanna Williams (PB). All of the girls ran well but Shawanna was the only one to make it through to the Semis where she qualified for the final 4th fastest. A great run in the final saw her take home a Bronze medal.
Katie Marsh joined Cerys in the 70m Hurdles heats and with Cerys making it two PB’s in two events to get through to the final, it was an unlucky 4th as she narrowly missed out on a medal.
Orla then added to the PB haul with her best performance in the Shot.
The last event of the day for our girls saw Katie step up in the Javelin. A great performance from Katie as she won gold to add to her recent club record. In fact such was her dominance that any one of her 6 throws would have won Gold.
Boys
What would have been a strong line up in the sprints was weakened by the withdrawal through injury of medal hope Joshua Jackson. That meant it was left to Dayo Sijuade and Mubarrak Salih. Dayo made the semis and would have been expected to make the final but it wasn’t his day. Mubarrak on the other hand ran consistently well in all three rounds and despite being pushed all the way in the final showed his class to claim Gold.
The boys 800m arguably provided the most drama of the day. Jack Adams wasn’t at his best and was run out of it in the final 200m of the first heat. The 2nd heat saw Gervace Card (PB) and James Barnes both qualify comfortably for the final which was only 100 minutes later. A tactical race with a slow 75s first lap meant that both our boys were in contention, however with 250m to go Gervace started to lose contact from a front three that included James but put in a strong finish to come 4th and almost claim another PB. Having gone into the final as third fastest James would have hoped to have been in the medals but a brilliantly judged last 100m saw him come through the other two athletes to take Gold in the last 15 meters and secure a two second PB.
Ben Tranter performed well in the long jump and was close to a pb in coming 9th. With another year to come in the age group he could have a medal opportunity next year.
All together some great results from the Under 13’s and I’m sure we would have added to the medal tally had the second day gone ahead.