Vale enters teams for both of the Youth Development League age groups and the first matches of the season have now taken place.
The younger league of U13/U15 athletes took place at Uxbridge and was very well attended by our members. Their hard work and training over the winter showed as over 80% of Vale’s results were new Personal Best times and distances which is a great start to the season; there was also a new Club Record.
There were so many great performances, it is impossible to mention them all. In the sprints, Lee Richards (U15) was very consistent with a win in the 200m and 2nd in the 100m well supported by Kyle Eldridge 3rd in the b string. Korben Fenty and Daniel Okafor both U13 won their 100m and 200m respectively. In the girls sprints, every girl achieved a PB; standing out are Olivia Black and Annabel Ralston for the U15s in the 200m, but top of the pile is Alice Rolfe who in her 3rd track race of the season achieved a 3rd PB and 2nd Club Record. Her time of 43.8 in the 300m won the race and broke her own Club Record.
In the middle distance races, U15s are very happy with Bronwyn Reed’s win in the 800m and Conor Richardson’s 2nd place. Joshua Brown also won the U13 race. Lucy Perkins and Hannah Mabey were strong in the 1200 but it was in the 1500m where we shone. Tom Swindlehurst won the U15 race by 7 seconds and Max Perry was 11 seconds ahead of the next athlete when he won the U13 event. Alexander Butler was 2nd in the U13 b string event, a huge 18 seconds ahead of the 3rd runner.
In the field events, again there were great results. For the U15s, Thomas Hale won the Pole Vault with a PB jump of 2.5m and Charlotte Armitage was 2nd with a PB of 2m. Charlotte Yates (U13) won the b string Shot event with Amber Eve 2nd in the a string; she was also 2nd in the U13 Long Jump. The remaining field events were a collection of good strong performances and thanks go to those athletes who competed in new events in order to win points for their team. Full results are available at: http://www.thepowerof10.info/results/results.aspx?meetingid=103393.
The previous weekend was the first event for the older age group of U17 and U20 athletes. Unfortunately for Vale there were other events such as Duke of Edinburgh Award taking place on the same day which meant we had a greatly depleted team and some injuries too. Personal Best performances are more difficult to come by as you get older, but there were a good number of them achieved on the day across all disciplines.
In the sprints, PB times went to James Atkins; James Mackay; Chloe Jones and two for Alexander Ingell across both age groups. Harry Thurkettle was our best performance with a 2nd place in the 100m hurdles. Middle distance brought a PB to Ethan Luck who was 4th in the U17 800m a string and Will Ralston who is improving all the time was delighted with his 2nd place in the b string. Rosanna Evans (U20) was also pleased with her 1500m PB.
A mixed bag in the relays, but 3rd place finished for the girls and boys in the 4x300m and 4x400m relays and another 3rd for the 4x100m U20 women.
In field events, TJ Bartley had a consistent day. He has not long been back from injury and performed very well winning his signature event the triple jump and finishing 2nd in the long jump and 3rd in the javelin. Donelle Arulanandam also performed well for the U20s with a 2nd, 3rd and 4th spot in her events. Well done to Harvey Frost and Sophie Dickerson for their Long Jump performances finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively and finally congratulations to Eleanor Taylor Newman (U17) who achieved two PBs in Shot and Javelin.
Thank you to those athletes who supported the Club; hopefully we will have a much stronger team for the next match even though GCSEs and A Levels will be looming!