Georgina pick of the Bunch

Seven members of Scunthorpe and district athletics club were selected to represent Humberside schools at the North East Regional Multi events Championships last weekend.

The athletes only had a short journey with the championships been held in glorious hot conditions at Costello stadium in Hull were the youngsters were to compete against teams from Cleveland, Northumberland, West Yorkshire, Durham, North Yorkshire and South Yorkshire.

The honour of the highest place finish went to Georgina O’CONNOR who was competing in the Inter girls Heptathlon. Like her team mates Georgina knew it would take a top 6 place finish in order to qualify for the national English schools Multi events finals in September. With this in mind Georgina set off in final style finishing in 6th place after the first event the 80m Hurdles in a time just outside her personal best. Georgina then kept her challenge going when she was in 8th place after adding 4 cm’s to her High Jump best. She then had a minor blip having to settle for a throw short of her best in the Shot putt having nearly been eliminated after recording two much longer no throws but fell out of the circle. She then picked herself up to record a new personal best and one of the fastest times of the day in the 200m. So the end of day one saw her in 5th place on course for her target.

Georgina then started day 2 with good efforts in the Long Jump and Javelin to go into the final event the 800m in 5th place. However the points score was very tight with only 100 points separating 5th to 8th place. Georgina was aware the 800m was by far her weakest event, but made every effort to keep up with the lead group which she managed to do for the first 500m, but with 300m to go the effort of 2 days in the heat finally caught up with her and she tailed of badly and unfortunately lost over 100 points on her rival to finish in 8th overall. Although disappointed to of got so close to her target Georgina has shown she is able to cope at this level and her coach Edel MEAGHER has hinted that there are maybe some long runs going to be written into her training schedule for the winter.

Also in the Inter girls event was Shani STATHERS, who although wasn’t able to match Georgina’s overall performance she had two outstanding events in the High Jump and Javelin were she finished in the top 5 in each of those events and must now work on her weaker events to improve on her overall finish .

The Humberside Junior boys team saw the full team been made up by Scunthorpe and district athletes with Jacob HAMMOND, Anthony GILLATT , Wesley WILLIAMS and Andrew HARMES competing with the support of Scunthorpe’s Multi events coach Dave HARMES. It was to be Jacob HAMMOND who led the way winning the unofficial club championships. Like Georgina he had set a target to finish in the top 10 finish and to break 2,000 points. Unfortunately Jacob was to just miss both targets. He had set of in good style been just outside his PB in the hurdles then set a new best in the Shot Putt, however things started to go slightly wrong in the Long jump when he was well below his target of 5m in the shot, this was compounded by a disastrous High Jump which saw him clip the bar off with his heels after been well over. Jacob then picked himself up to run a good 800m near to his best, this saw him finish in 13^th place with 1,842 points. Speaking afterwards with his coach Jacob was slightly disappointed with his overall score even though it was a personal best. He has identified the Long Jump and High jump as to two events he must work on before heading to Stoke in August for the National club championships which will hopefully see him smash through 2,000 points. The Shot Putt was to prove to be the strong event for the junior boys with Both Anthony and Andrew also recording best distances, with Anthony also running a new best time in the 800m .Wesley was to be the only one of the team to perform well in the High Jump recording a new best. The boys were to finish as 5th team overall

Day 2 saw Hannah DUNKERLEY take part in her very first ever Penthalon after she was selected even though she missed the trials in May. She was to have an excellent event recording personal bests in the Shot and Long jump were she broke 4m for the first time. She then was close to her best in the hurdles, but like Jacob struggled in the High Jump although by this time the weather had hit 28 degrees and with a big filed the competitors were jumping for over an hour. Hannah then rounded her day off with a good run in the 800m to finish 17th overall with 1962 points. Like Jacob her aim will be to break 2,000 points before the end of the season.