Injuries ruin chances for Scunthorpe athletes

5 Scunthorpe athletes headed to Gateshead International Stadium for the English Schools Championships. The championships are often referred to as the schools Olympics and this year was broadcast on Sky TV, with the Saturday's events going out live in the afternoon.

Qualifying starts with 1,000’s of school children competing at regional events all over the country, they then progress onto County trials, from which the county schools associations select athletes to go to the Championships. As well as coming in the first two at the County schools, athletes are expected to have reached a strict qualifying standard. This will already rank most athletes in the top 30 in the country in their event.

However it was to be poor championships for the Scunthorpe youngsters. The first two to try their luck were Steph OCONNOR in the junior girls 100m and Dominic GREEN in the  Senior boys event, however both failed to progress past the heats. Steph who was competing in her second finals was the first to try but failed to match her qualifying time and trailed in last in her heat. Next saw Dom who had finally managed to qualify for the championships in his last year at college have a terrible start getting left in his blocks. However he did well to make up ground to eventually finish 5th in his heat but his time wasn’t quick enough to progress into the semi finals. Both were to get another chance to redeem themselves when they ran in the sprint relays. Steph running as part of a Humberside quartet had a good run in the heats with the team finishing in 2nd place to progress to the final, where a poor change over was to cost them dear when they had been in second place after the second leg they eventually fell back to 7th, less than a second behind second place. Dom’s bad luck was to continue when he was partially responsible for a late change over which saw the team disqualified. Dom will probably want to forget his experience at his first major championship but as a late comer to the sport his progress has been rapid and hopefully he can redeem himself with a sub 11 second run before the end of the season

Unfortunately injury was to take it toll on the clubs two jumpers. Ashley WREN went into the the senior boys long jump as the top ranked jumper. However, his early season form which saw him win a Junior international vest has been destroyed by a groin injury. Ash who had been in a race to recover fitness faced the anguish of finishing in 7th place with 6.81m knowing that his best jump of 7.35m from earlier in the season would have been enough to win the event .He will look to try and regain his 7m form over the next few weeks and maintain his second place in the rankings. But training partner Josh BONES faces been out of action for the rest of the season when he pulled out of the Senior boys triple jump after the first round. The triple jump is well known in athletics circle as been a body breaker and Josh had gone into the event with an ankle injury but had been in consistent form with 7 competitions over 14m. But after pulling out of his first jump Josh felt something in his foot which after a trip to A&E has now been diagnosed as a stress fracture. Which will keep him out for 8-12 weeks basically the rest of the season.

The bright spot for the club was provided by 17 year old Alice KAYE who was competing for Lincolnshire Schools. Alice had qualified for both the 200m and 400m; she eventually made the decision her best chance maybe the 200m despite having set a new club record in the 400m this season. Her decision proved to be correct when she cruised through her heat finishing in 2nd place. Then in the final despite been only the 7th quickest qualifier she ran an excellent bend to power her way to 4th place. Her time of 25.2 was only just outside her best ever. Whilst she would have had to knock nearly a second off her 400m record to qualify for the final of that event. However despite her excellent sprinting form it maybe that her future still lies at 400m and with been at the bottom of the age group she is still eligible for the championships next year     

Intermediate Girls (U17)

Steph O’CONNOR         100m – 7th heat/13.0 secs

Senior Girls (U20)

Alice Kaye                       200m-2nd heat/25.66sec    200m-4th final/25.20 sec

Senior Boys (U20)

Domonic GREEN         100m-5th heat/11.44 sec

Ashley WREN              LJ-7th/6.82m

Josh BONES                 TJ- No distance