Northern Under 17 and Under 15 Track and Field Championships, 23rd and 24th May 2009

Gateshead International Stadium

Report written by Neill Bones and Paul Wren  (Photographs shown below)

Four Scunthorpe & District Athletic Club athletes travelled north to the Gateshead International Stadium for the 2009 Northern Athletics Under 17 Championships.

Saturday 23rd May saw Sophie Croft commence proceedings with the under 17's women’s 100m where Sophie finished 5th in her heat with a time of 13.23 seconds.  Sophie then went straight to the under 17 women’s long jump where she jumped commendably, narrowly missing out on a medal with a fourth place jump of 5.17m. This performance was particularly impressive considering Sophie had not trained specifically for this event since the end of last summer.

Ashley Wren ran an impressive heat in the under 17 men’s 200m, easing down for second place in a time of 23.33 seconds. Ashley then only just missed out on a medal in the final finishing fourth with a personal best time of 22.57 seconds.  Ashley was closing on third place in the home straight and only very narrowly missed out on the bronze medal.

Elicia Bones was the clubs sole under 15 representative, testing herself in the highly competitive javelin competition, where she finished 7th with a throw of 16.49m

Josh Bones set a Club record in the under 17's men’s triple jump with an outdoor personal best of 13.95m. Josh looked to have secured the gold medal with his final jump, only to see his northern rival James Davis snatch the gold medal with his final attempt of 14.06m. Josh had to be satisfied with the Silver on this occasion.

Day two of the competition, Sunday 24th May, saw Sophie Croft run a very strong 200m heat finishing second in a time of 26.60 seconds, to qualify for the final. In the final itself, Sophie was well in contention coming off the bend and then started to use her strength to reel in those just in front of her.  With only a few metres left she was bearing down on the third placed athlete but just ran out of track, finishing only 0.15 seconds behind her in 4th place with a time of 25.73 seconds, which was very close to her personal best.

In the Long Jump, Ashley Wren was up against some stiff opposition including the Blackpool athlete James Davis. His first round jump of 6.61m eventually proving to be good enough to fend off his rivals, but not before the second placed athlete James Davis had leapt to within 2 cm's of Ashley's mark. It was that close, but the Gold Medal capped off what was a great weekend of athletics and the Scunthorpe Athletes that made the journey can all be proud of their performances.