The club's U20/U17 team had a solid start to the season in their first Youth Development League (YDL) fixture at Ashford. Despite placing 5th out of the seven teams at the end of the day we were only 27 points away from second (567 / 585) and with two home matches to come during the busy exam months the prospects of a top two finish in our division are still good.
On the womens’ side there were a host of new PBs to kick off the summer. The good weather helped and in the throws Paige MacHeath threw a mighty 41.39M in the U17 Javelin to rank second in the UK. Jaratta Adams won both the UU17 Hammer and Discus with 26.19M and 26.72M respectfully, whilst Charlotte Corbin came out of hibernation to pick up valuable points in the B strings. Sophie Fenner set a seasons best for third in the U20 hammer and then went on to win the U20 800M - how many Hammer throwers can make that boast?
On the track it was great to have some of our top performers turning out for the team, Sabrina Sinha had a comfortable win in the U20 400 in 58.74, but was harder pushed in the 200M where she had to settle for 3rd with 27.32. A steady headwind for most of the day slowed the sprinters but didn't stop Daniele Blake showing the other athletes a clean pair of hells with a comfortable U20 100M win in 12.63. Vera Chinedu had a go at 300m for the first time and finished second with a good time of 42.04. Over the longer distances there were wins for both Ella Newton (U17 steeplechase) and Molly Hawkins (U20 steeplechase) and Lizzie Garland (U18 800m B ) whilst Jade Fitt and Mads Cooper added good points with a second and first in the U17 300M Hurdles.
On the boys’ side there was more evidence of good winter training as Reece Miles reduced his 1500M PB by 5 seconds and Kody Powell got under 52 for the first time in the 400M. Callum Nason had a busy day in the throws but came away with wins in the hammer and B string Shot and third places in the Discus and Javelin (the latter with a PB of 40.10M). In the sprints again the headwind slowed times but there were good wins for Joseph Alason (U20 100M 11.37) and Brandon Mingelli (U17 200M 23.47) and in the relays some good sprinting and baton changing led to wins for both the U20 mens’ and womens’ 4x100M teams. Special mention to Tom Foster who did the 400M hurdles, 3000M, 800M and 4x400M! Next YDL is at Sutcliffe on Sunday 29th June for members who want to come down and support the team.