SCUNTHORPE YOUNGSTERS SHELTER INDOOR

A Report by Matt Hammond

Saturday saw 9 Scunthorpe youngsters attend the first Northern indoor open meeting of the winter. The event was held at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield in the World class indoor facilities. With the rain lashing down outside the youngsters were happy to be competing in the warm and dry. Unlike an outdoor track which is 400m the indoor arena is only 200m and is heavily banked and has a 60m flat straight running down the middle.

Some of the Scunthorpe athletes are well versed with the facilities as it is the location of the Yorkshire and Humberside elite squads, whilst for others this was their first ever experience of indoor running. But for all it was a chance to gauge how well their winter training is going. It has been 2 months since the summer season ended and after a short break all are into the heavy winter training including those gruelling hill sessions on the slopes around Scunthorpe.

First up saw one of the elite squad athletes Josh BONES competing in his favoured event the triple jump. This was very much a chance to experiment with a new run up and start the preparation for the national indoors finals later in the year which saw Josh win national honours last year. Although slightly disappointed with his distance Josh still finished second competing against senior athletes.

Next up was an indoor new comer Jacob HAMMOND, Jacob has previously concentrated on cross country during the winter but has now made the switch to the club multi events coach Dave HARMES to concentrate on Multi events. With that in mind he competed in 3 very different events first up was the 60m hurdles where despite a very poor start he still managed to finish 5th , next was the 600m where again he finished 5th but smashed his target by 5 seconds. Having literally just stepped off the track from the 600m he was straight into the high jump where he set a personal best of 1.40m and was very unlucky not to go higher. This was to be a very busy day for Dave as he had brought a lot of his squad for an early season run out.  Anthony Gillatt was also experiencing with his first taste of indoors competition and had an excellent start with a new personal best in the shot and 60m  although he was a little disappointed in his long jump.  Also in the shot was Ellicia BONES who has moved up to the under 17 girls which meant her first attempt with a heavier shot. Although slightly disappointed with her result big things are expected this year form her as she gets used to the weight.  Next was Freya BRADSHAW who also had to cope with moving up to the under 17 age group. Freya concentrated on her favoured sprint events the 60m and 150m events and had an excellent day achieving two new personal bests. Following her example was the most experienced member of the group Daniel HARMES who also competed in the sprints. The 150m proves to be an unusual challenge for the athletes with the start actually been slightly down hill, so the older more powerful athletes likely Daniel struggle not to stumble as they come out of their blocks. Daniel just missed out on his aim of running a qualifying time for the national indoor finals, but will have several more chances during the winter.

Also competing were the two sprint training partners Ellie STANDERLINE and Alice KAYE. The sprints saw huge fields with over 150 athletes turning out and in order to provide the optimum competition heats were graded so all athletes were pushing each other. Both Ellie and Alice turned this to their advantage and ran excellent personal bests. Ellie is now in the top 20 in the country on the early indoor rankings which is an excellent performance as she has only just moved up to under 15 age group. Ellie then contested the long jump finishing 6th in the under 15 girls and Alice rounded the day of by taking over half a second off her 150m best.

The youngest Scunthorpe athlete and the youngest member of the Bones family competing was Georgia BONES in the u13 shot. Georgia is making steady progress in the event and achieved a creditable 6th place.

SHOT

60m hurdles

U15M Jacob Hammond 11.17sec

Triple jump 

U20M Joshua Bones`13.36m

Long Jump

60M

600M

U15B Jacob Hammond 1:45.75mins

150M