By Coach Brian Buckley
Despite a number of obstacles that faced the club this year, our Juniors have had an excellent track and field season. Waterlogged fields would never stop our Juniors, taking advantage of extra throwing practice and seeing it pay off in competitions.
Let’s see how our athletes performed at competitions throughout the year.
CDAN Spring and Summer Athletics Festivals
The CDAN competitions are a quad kids format where all the athletes take part in and endurance run, a sprint, the long jump and the Vortex Howler Throw.
The spring athletics festival took place in April at Shildon. The weather at this event was very wet and proved a true test of endurance for those looking after events and athletes alike.
Our team finished in 4th place out of the seven clubs entered. There were some excellent individual performances from our juniors with Alya, Rodrigo, Izzy and Miguel all finishing in 2nd place and Espen finishing in 3rd place overall in their individual categories.
At the Andy Billette Summer Athletics Festival held at the Riverside in Chester-le-Street we had much improved weather making for an easy day for those competing.
Our team finished in 3rd place overall on the day and we had some more excellent individual overall performances, with Alya, Rodrigo and Miguel all winning their individual categories. Willow finished in 2nd place and Espen and Izzy both finished in 3rd place.
Overall, 17 of our juniors took part in the CDAN events this year.
DABGC Athletics Championships
The DABGC Athletics Championships were held at Shildon this year. We had another excellent day where we had 12 junior athletes taking part. We won nine individual events, seven of them in throws competitions.
Our U17 girls team performed very well and were just pipped by a couple of points in the team competition. Eva had an exceptionally good day winning both the long jump in a very close competition (with Emily separated by just 2cm) and then went on to win the high jump equaling the club record of 1.40m.
Emily went on to win the javelin with a new club record and Lucy won the discus competition. Miguel was in good form winning both the javelin and shotput. Rodrigo won both the Shot Put and Discus and Espen won the shotput in the U13 boys category with an amazing throw of 8.20m smashing the previous club record by over a meter.
There were other notable performances on the day from some of our other junior athletes Sophia, Rowan, Skye, Holly, Isla and Willow – well done to them all.
School Athletics Competitions
As a club, we were acting as team managers at the County Durham Track and Field Championships for the Derwentside District. Six of our athletes were taking part on the day.
Eva competed in the long jump and just missed out on qualifying for the county at the next round on this occasion. Willow competed well in the high jump, an event that she is still learning. Emily competed very well in the triple jump but was up against some very strong competitors. Ruby competed well in the 100m qualifying for the final where she finished in 5th place with a good time.
Izzy only just made the 800m after the timetable suddenly seemed to lose a lot of events due to them being straight finals earlier in the day. Despite this, Izzy competed very well and broke the club record in the process.
Lucy competed in the discus and her excellent performance meant she qualified to compete for the County at the Northern Schools Inter Counties, held at Gateshead Stadium, where she finished 3rd with an oustanding throw.
A huge well done to all our girls who took part in the schools’ competitions this year. Next year we’re hopeful that more of our athletes will take part and qualify to represent County Durham and get a lovely purple hoodie.
NEYDL
The NEYDL is a series of four meetings held during the summer months from April to July. Our club is in a combined team with Houghton Harriers and Middlesbrough A.C.
14 of our junior athletes have taken part across the four meetings. We encourage our juniors to take part in the maximum number of events possible at each meeting which is three and in particular at least one field event. Most of the juniors do at least two field events.
There were some excellent performances, and this is how we did in the first three meets:
- Monkton – 2nd place, behind Chester-le-Street
- Shildon – 1st place
- Whitley Bay – 2nd place, behind Blyth
Going into the last meeting, we were 1st overall and one point ahead of Chester-le-Street and two points ahead of Blyth.
Unfortunately, we had a few of our junior athletes missing due to school trips and injuries. Nethertheless, we got off to a good start with athletes producing some strong performances, setting new PBs and one new club record.
The announcements of positions and the points on the day had us in 4th place. We left for home knowing our athletes had done their very best at this meeting and during the whole season, but it looked like we were going to miss out on finishing in 1st place overall.
However, later in the day, Coach Buckley received a message from one of the parents saying we had finished in 2nd place on the day and had gained promotion to division one next season. To say that the club is overjoyed is a bit of an understatement. Our juniors have been competing in the NEYDL since 2018 and this is the first time we have won our division.
A huge well done to the juniors on a great set of results and my thanks to all those that have supported them throughout this year and in previous years. We really hope that the other juniors will now be inspired by this excellent achievement.
Club Records
There have been 17 club records broken this year by nine of our junior athletes. Most of the records have been in the throw events, as well as jumps and running.
Our new records were set in the following events:
- 800m – Izzy
- 1500m – Lucy
- High jump (equalled) – Eva
- Triple jump – Emily
- Shotput – Ruby and Espen
- Javelin – Emily
- Discus – Isla and Lucy
- Howler throw – Miguel and Willow
It’s certainly true to say that our juniors have truly excelled in the field events this year and in particular the throws. It’s been a real pleasure to witness them doing so well in the less glamorous events in athletics. Only if you dare to believe in yourself will you achieve success.
