Northern Athletics, Indoor Open Meeting - Saturday 20th November 2010

Images and Report courtesy of Matt Hammond

Scunthorpe and District Athletics club have showed they are determined to continue to improve and become one of the top clubs in the area when they revealed ambitious plans to provide their athletes with top facilities this winter. The club has hired the World class facilities at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. The facility boasts a 200m indoor track as well as jumping and throwing areas. Some of the clubs athletes have already had a taste of using the facilities when they were invited to take part in the Yorkshire and Humberside Elite squads this winter. The clubs Vice Chairman Gary Spindley said ‘This is a fantastic opportunity to train at one of the top venues in the country.  This is a full Club opportunity open to all athletes from the Road, Cross country, and Track & Field sections. We have initially booked the EIS for 3 hours on a Saturday morning in December and are hoping the Mum's & Dad's bring their kids across and take the chance for 3 hour's shopping at Meadowhall without the kid's’.

The club suffers from having no proper indoor facilities in the town and currently use Frederick Gough school gym to do conditioning work. If the training day proves to be a success then it will be repeated during the winter.

Athletics club show their ambition

Several members of the club decided not to wait for the training day when they entered a Northern Athletics open meeting and took the opportunity to stretch their legs and see how their winter training was going. With events all been run in seeded heats it was a chance to set new personal bests and many of the youngsters did exactly that. It was also a chance to race with electronic timing, The first event was the 60m and saw nearly 200 entrants but this didn’t bother Rosie Tate, Stephanie O’Connor, Georgina O’Connor and Andrew Harmes who all set new bests. Rosie who has only just moved up to the under 15’s age group then set a best in the high jump and Stephanie rounded her day off with a new best in the 150m.

Another best came in the 150m for Freya BRADSHAW who had to sit for nearly 5 hours before she got a chance to run in the second to last heat of the day but the wait was well worth it when she came second in the heat and set a new best.

The event also saw the throws group turn out in force in the Shot Putt with coaches Matt HAMMOND and Edel MEAGER deciding to throw alongside their young athletes.

The day got off to a good start when Alex LOCKETT competing for the first time indoors added over a metre to her outdoor best.

The best kept coming with Jess WATSON, Anthony GILLATT, and Daniel HARMES all setting bests. The seniors were not to be out done when first Joe GIBSON set a new club record in the senior men’s event even more impressive as he did it with a standing throw. Then the coaches matched his feat with Edel breaking the senior women’s record and Matt HAMMOND showed there is life in his old bones by setting a new veteran’s record. 

The day was rounded of by Tomas ANDREWS and Anthony GILLATT finishing second and third in the under 17 Triple Jump despite been their first meeting at the older age group and both setting new bests.