Scunthorpe Athletes at their best for Schools

Press Report by Matt Hammond

Last weekend saw Scunthorpe and District athletes make up a large portion of the North Lincolnshire Schools team for the Humberside Schools athletics championships in HULL. The Championships are made up of team from North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, East Riding and Hull. The ultimate prize is to achieve the qualifying distance or time for the English schools finals.

In sunny conditions with a slight following wind it was to be a day of personal bests for many of the athletes. But perhaps the unluckiest athlete was Steph OCONNOR in the Junior Girls (school years 8,9) 100m heat, she knocked nearly half a second off her personal best, ran the English school qualifying  time, earned a top 25 national ranking and set a new club record. But aggravated an old injury which meant she had to limp home in the final which she no doubt would have won. This then meant she had to miss her favoured 200m. She must now wait to see if she will be selected to attend the English schools finals. The rest of  the Junior girls then followed Steph’s example , with Ellie Standerline setting a new personal best in the 100m final then, adding over 30cm to her Long Jump best to finish 2nd. The 800m saw Hannah DUNKERLY finish in 3^rd place and smash through the 2.40 barrier which she has been chasing for several months, not to be out done Bethany TAYLOR finished in 4^th place and also set a personal best.

The Junior boys then kept the best performances coming. Like Steph, Anthony Gillat was to achieve all sorts of land marks in the Hammer when he won the competition, setting a new personal best which was a club record and moved him up to 41^st in the National rankings. Jacob HAMMOND set two new bests when finishing second in both the 80m Hurdles and the Javelin. Andrew HARMES also came home with a new best in the hurdles with both boys obviously benefitting from recent hurdles training. Alex HENDY and Alex MERRILLS had a personal duel in the 400m when they finish on identical times and new bests in the race, with HENDY just given the nod. Kieron Conway kept the bests coming with a second place in the 800m. Nathan TOGUN added another 70 cm to his Triple Jump best, and not far behind was Thomas ANDREWS. Another to make a massive improvement was Elliott STONES who smashed over 12 seconds off his 1500m best and earned  a top 27 ranking , but had the heart break of missing the English schools qualifying by just 1 second, but he will have a chance to chase the time in the next 2 weeks.

The Intermediate girls (Years 10 and 11) saw the best continue with Georgina O’CONNOR setting a new best in the 80m Hurdles when finishing second, Jess WATSON matched that second place in the Hammer and also achieved a new best. The javelin saw a victory for Shani STATHERS and a new best. Freya Bradshaw knocked a second off her best coming second in the 300m. The Inter boys saw best for Jordan WILLIAMS second in the 100m and Tom CARLYON who won the 400m.

The oldest age group was the Senior boys and Girls, which saw both Sophie CROFT and Dominic GREEN with two new bests in both the 100m and 200 sprints  and Bethan HAMMOND knocking half a second off her 100m hurdles best. Finally Josh REED tried a new event in the 2000 steeple chase and finished 2^nd