Last Sunday, four of our Juniors and younger Teens group members participated in the second Cheltenham Harriers hosted "Low key Open" meeting at Prince of Wales stadium to gain experience of track and field events. Annabel (9), Aria (9) [left], Jess and Matthew (both 10) participated in a variety of events from hurdles to 800m and including field and "Sportshall" events and did well, all the girls getting podium medals.
Aria showing off her silver medal from the hurdles
RESULTS
U10 girls
3rd Annabel Campbell 10.3s in 60m
2nd Annabel Campbell 2m 20s in 600m
U12 Girls
2nd Aria Stavrakakis 14.4s in 70m hurdles
5th Aria Stavrakakis 16.4s in 100m
6th Jessica Ross 16.6s in 100m
3rd Jessica Ross 2m 54.8s in 800m
3rd Jessica Ross 3.15m in the Long Jump
7th Aria Stavrakakis 2m 64cm in the long Jump
3rd Jessica Ross 44 jumps in speed bounce (60s)
U12 Boys
4th Matthew Ross 15.1s in 100m
5th Matthew Ross 2m 48.0s in 800m
Elsewhere, on Saturday, participating in his first senior track and field league event was Juniors and Teens coach, Dorian. The event at Poole, Dorset, was for his second claim club, Swindon Harriers. Running "just for fun" in gusty (yes, not gutsy!) 100m and 200m races, against athletes younger than his children, he recorded reasonable times (16.2 and 33.6s, resp.). Then he competed as the B-string representative in the Triple Jump!
Never having done this event before, his preparation consisted on watching some triple jump training videos on YouTube and "hopping and stepping" over some yoga blocks in the gym! The instruction from the Team captain was "just get a legal jump in", so firstly he needed to ensure the board was near enough to the sand, but it was 7m away. Having only jumped 5m in the gym, Dorian managed to get the judges to put some tape down at 5m and jumped from there! A wise decision, as with a jump of 6.2m, he got legal jump and scored valuable points for the Club. Importantly, he didn't injure himself doing it, so he might try it again, as he only needs a metre or so to set a Club age based record!
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