District Championships and Superteams

The new meeting to replace the district championships and Scottish Closed Championships took place at Wishaw over the weekend. The new format meant that there was no individual competition for the Under 13 age group, the Senior events were replaced by an inter district competition and only the Under 15 and Under 17 athletes had proper district championships. Unfortunately there were no medal ceremonies for the winners which was a shame for Peter Bowman - probably the best club athlete in action. Peter won the Under 17 West District 800 metres in a new personal best (his second in a week at Wishaw) of 2:00.61. He was only 0.23 of a second ahead of the second placer after a sprint finish. Well done Peter - just keep hacking that pb down.

The Under 13's had four events to contest as a team and the girls competing in the Superteams competition all performed creditably. In the 800 Roisin McShea ran 2:47, Lauren Butler 2:59, Kirsty Kelly 3 minutes and Rachel Busby 3:07.6. After this event the girls were second from 27 teams competing. In the second event, the long jump, Lauren and Kirsty jumped over 3 metres, Roisin 2.30 and Rachel 2.17 metres. The team was now in fourth position. The third event was the javelin and here they all threw about 10 metres. This saw a drop in position which was npt surprising because there has been very little in the way of field events training done. The new Monday night Field Events only sessions should help sort that one out.

Finally there was the 4 x 100 metres relay: The girls ran really well to finish third in their event but unfortunately they were disqualified for passing the baton outside the box. This was a big disappointment but it can be easily rectified and if you watch the big Games meetings on television you will see that the British Men have a seriously bad record in this event! The girls had had a long day but the team spirit shown was considerable and bodes well for the future.

Reports on the day were varied but there were some negatives: The day was very long! After getting there for 10 o'clock the relays were at 5.30 pm. The weather was so bad that the Perth Strathtay team left after one event and went home. Before the first event a team manager was heard in the corridor leading from the Sports Centre to the track giving a wee team talk and the words "Now, have any of you not done an 800 metres before?" were heard. 120 teams were entered and something like 45 teams turned out. The girls all deserve credit for working so hard over such a long period and the parents who were there all deserve a huge vote of thanks for their organisation and work on what was not an easy day.