For the second edition of the 2017 KYAL we were at Central Park in Dartford. Another large turn out meant we were able to fill all of the scoring places and many of non-scoring places again.
The weather appeared perfect but a headwind into the home straight restricted quick times for most. Nevertheless, some strong and battling performances throughout meant that the U13 boys team achieved a fantastic 1st place out of the 8 teams, almost 20 points ahead of Tonbridge in 2nd.
A real team performance with 9 top 2 finishes and a smattering of pb’s. In the field Nico put in strong performances again with three 2nd places (2 A strings and one B) in the throws and this was supplemented by big performances from the other throw competitors, all of which threw pb’s. There was a 2nd place in the B Shot for Reuben, 4th place for Theo H-T in the A string Javelin (moved to A string by the results officials as he had the furthest throw of our competitors) and a surprised Thomas Carbin won the B Hammer. Thomas followed up his hammer with an A string 4th place and pb equalling leap in the high jump and not to be outdone Dontay came 3rd with a new pb in the High Jump B string.
On to the track and a couple of late arrivals meant that the warm ups for Carlos and Temi consisted of a sprint to the start line to narrowly make the gun for their first events. A full turn out across the sprints and hurdles added points but it was at the longer track distances where we really scored heavily.
Competitive race walk debuts for Christian Hopper (A string) and Joe Eastment (B string) saw us take maximum points, with Christian beating all of the other boys by a big margin and Joe holding off everyone else to be 2nd boy overall (and as a result, win the B string).
Not to be outdone by the race walkers our 800m runners took to the start line in determined mood. Ethan was up first in the A race and his efforts to attack from the front made for a thrilling race in which 3 different boys held the lead in the last 250m. It was however the Cambridge Harrier that came through in the last 50m to win by a narrow margin and claim maximum points. Next up was Jack Adams in the B race, running his first competitive 800m for the club. In an equally thrilling race, and despite tripping during the 2nd lap, Jack came through in the final 100m to breeze past a boy twice his size, take first place and knock 5 seconds off his pb. A mention also to James Barnes, who had a solid performance in the NS 800m slot, despite having competed in and finishing 5th in an Aquathlon earlier in the day.
In addition to the individual performances the scoring 4×100 relay team (Thomas/Dontay/Temi/Ethan) had another good run as a four, coming 3rd in their heat which also contained our NS team (Theo/Carlos/Joe/Jack), who weren’t too far behind.
The man of the match decision seems to get tougher as the weeks go by. There are some strong contenders this week, most notably Jack, Theo and Thomas. However, as we reach halfway in the league matches it goes to someone who is the only boy to have competed in the maximum 4 events in every match so far and that is Dontay Thomas.
See full results here.