By Karen Wilkinson
On Saturday 21st April we board a sparkling new coach heading to Walton Athletics Club. The sun was shining and the athletes were feeling good. On arrival at Walton – our first of four competitions – we were all very surprised to see the fantastic new facilities. All the athletes were keen to try out the new track!
Our under 13 boys started the competition first with Oscar Ewen Matthews jumping an incredible PB of 4.32m, followed by Aayan Kar jumping a fabulous PB 3.63!
First on the track was Mia Wilkinson U15 girls running the 75m hurdle race. She executed this race brilliantly, resulting in a PB 13.0. Aayan didn’t have long to recover from his long jump as he was running the 200m. This was a great race for Aayan who achieved his 2nd PB of the day 30.7, closely followed by Joe Wilkinson who was running in the B string and he also ran a respectable 32.2 PB.
Next up for the 200m was Amelia Verney. Rumour had it, the girl from Walton was ranking in the top 5 in UK! Finally, Amelia had some competition and she ran an incredible race. Jeslyn from Walton came 1st 25.8 and Amelia came 2nd 25.9. This was a PB and has placed Amelia 6th in the UK! This was such a great race to watch! In the B string Abigail Philips stepped in at the last minute, also ran amazing 200m 28.1 PB.
Then we headed back to the long jump pit to cheer on Lana Blake and Leah Sullivan. Both girls jumped PB’s, Lana was a superb 5.20m and Leah was a superb 4.77m. Over on the high jump Anya very kindly filled a gap and cleared an amazing 1.20m PB! All these PB’s before lunch. As you can imagine the atmosphere within the team was buzzing.
After lunch we watched Daniel Armstrong, Oscar Ewen Matthews and Louie Todd run their 800m. Following the athletes before lunch both Daniel and Oscar acheived fantastic PB’s. Morgan Somerseth finished off the 800m races in style! Our sprinters were busy warming up and preparing to run their 75m and 100m. Our U13 girls went first running 75m and again both Mia Armstrong and Sofina Sommerseth ran the same PB’s 11.4!
The U13 boys were next up and true to form Daniel Armstrong ran a brilliant race PB 13.8 closely followed by Oscar Ewen Matthew who also ran a PB 14.0!
Next to run 100m were the U15 girls and again Amelia Verney was up against Jeslyn from Walton who is now ranked UK’s number 1! Another spectacular race to watch and I am sure Jeslyn could sense Amelia was close by. Amelia comfortably took 2nd place running an outstanding time of 12.6 ranking Amelia overall 5th in UK! Lana Blake also ran an incredible 100m 12.9 another PB!
On to our non-scoring 100m runners, Isabelle Franklin ran a PB 13.8, Mia Wilkinson 14.1 PB and Leah Sullivan 14.5 PB. The sun had disappeared behind some clouds and a few drops of rain fell but this didn’t stop our athletes from performing. Abigail Philips went on and ran incredible 300m whilst Anya Sandell ran a fantastic PB. Our boys U15 Jasper Todd ran a great 300m running a PB of 44.6!
Back on the track with little rest was Anya running an amazing 1500m and another PB!
Amongst all our track events Kira Collard was achieving great things with her throws. In her shot put event she throw an amazing 8.12m a PB and discus she cam first throwing 23.76m, it’s great to have a to have a thrower on our team this year!
Also Morgan Sommerseth was jumping well in long jump achieving a PB at 4.60m. After a long day, all our athletes still managed to run fabulous relay races! Looking forward to Saturday 19th May at Winchester.
Thank you Robin for joining us for the day and officiating.