Fun in the sun for Scunthorpe stars

Report by Matt Hammond

Images by Ashley and Paul Wren

Scunthorpe and District athletic club’s young stars Ashley WREN and Josh BONES have returned from their first International trip with season bests in their favourite events.

Both had been rewarded for their outstanding 2009 medal winning performances with selection to the Northern Athletics team for a 5 days tour of Malta accumulating in an invitation to the Malta International Invitation meeting. The Northern team consisted of 20 young stars that were based at MARSA which is the home of Malta AAA and the site of the islands only international standard track. The youngsters found themselves up against senior athletes from as far a field as Sweden, Libya, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago as well as local Malta athletes.

First on was Josh Bones in the triple jump, Josh who had struggle during the winter with a foot injury showed he is just rounding into form with a jump of 14.07m just short of his best from last year, but good enough to give him one of the best jumps so far by an under 20 athlete outdoors this year.

Later in the afternoon Josh Joined Ashley in the Long jump. Ashley had already overcome one major hurdle getting to Malta by mastering his fear of traveling to get on the plane. His next target was to sort out his run up which he had so far this season struggled with due to his extra strength and speed. He needn’t have worried when, with the warm weather on his back and a following wind he jumped a season’s best of 6.73 the second longest jump outdoors this season by an under 17 athlete. This gained Ash 4th place overall and second place in the under 20’s. Josh was not far behind when he jumped a personal best of 6.39. Again one of the longest Jumps outdoors this year by an Under 20 athlete.

Ashley had hoped to run in the 200m but it clashed with the Long Jump so he had to be content with rounding the afternoon of with 3rd leg in the 4 x 100m relay for the Northern team, which finished in second place.

Unfortunately the trip will also be remembered for another reason when the two young athletes and members of their families who had made the trip to watch them compete suffered from apparent food poisoning before flying back. Hopefully this will not put them off future competitions abroad.