Junior Profiles: Beth Atkinson

Beth joined the club just two years ago and is already a regular member of club teams as well as the West Dunbarton/Clydesdale Harriers squads for the Young Athletes League. As a track and field specialist she trains mostly with Donald McLeod but at times joins in with Phil Dolan's group for a bit of endurance training. Everybody needs some form of endurance training and Phil's group is usually quite good fun. Although she is quite quiet by nature she is a good competitor and thinks a bit about the sport: she is about the only one of the girls of her group who has ever asked me why she was doing a session.

Apart from club training sessions, Beth first came to my attention when she said she wanted to do the hurdles in an indoor league match in her first winter's competition. Not many volunteer for this one but Beth was sure that she wanted it. She was quite justified because she soon started to turn into a fairly good hurdler. When I met her again at the club presentation after I had been away for a while she had shot up in height and that can only be good for her hurdling - maybe a word with Megan would be useful! She won this year's Under 15 club championship with a clean sweep of the field events and in the Local Athletics Partnership she won silver (shot putt), bronze (javelin) and was fourth in the discus. Her current pb for 60 metres is 10.71 and for shot putt 5.74.

Beth runs for the school St Andrew's High School) on the track and over the country and always takes part in the Fresh'n'Lo Great Scottish Run 3K Race. Like most girls of her age she takes part in many other sports such as netball, basketball, volleyball, tennis and football. With that regime she should be fit enough for a good summer 'over the sticks' in 2009!