Scunthorpe Athletes help Humberside to 6^th place

13 members of Scunthorpe and district athletics club travelled up to Gateshead International stadium to represent Humberside in the Northern Intercounties championships. The championships saw 10 teams competing from Yorkshire, Lancashire, Merseyside, Lincolnshire, and N.E counties, Greater Manchester, Derbyshire, Cumbria, Cheshire and Humberside. The events were contested in the under 15, 17 and senior age groups covering all the track and field disciplines.

The busiest athlete of the day was Rachel FISK who competed in three events for Humberside in the senior ladies. Despite the heavy schedule Rachel was in excellent form running a personal best in the 400m bettering her time from 2004 when she was ranked as one of the most promising under 17 athletes in the country. She then followed this up with another best in the 200m so could be excused for running a slightly slower 800m. However with Rachel now running fast times for every distance from 200m up to 1500m it will be interesting to see if she can attack her 800m best that also stands from 2004.

Another lady having a busy day was Alice KAYE who ran 100m, 200m and 300m. Alice was using this as a warm up for the UK school games also in Gateshead next weekend. She will be pleased to have run close to her best in the 100m despite running into a head wind and will look to take that speed into next weekend’s competition.

Another athlete heading back to Gateshead next weekend for the UK school games is Ashley WREN who easily won the under 17 Long Jump. Ashley was slightly disappointed with the distance but has shown he is able to raise his performance in the big events. The other athlete to win his event was Elliott STONES in the under 15 boys 1500m who was just outside his best but still won by over 5 seconds.

Personal bests were achieved by Dan HARMES in the Long Jump.  Dan has recently been on holiday in America and took the opportunity to test himself against the American athletes in a local opening meeting where he set a good 100m time, he then showed how this speed is helping his Long Jump when he jumped 6.38m his 4^th best in the event in the last month. Two athletes were to set personal bests in the 3000m; first Lewis STONES took another 2 seconds off his best which has seen him improve by over 10 seconds this year. Then Gav MARSHALL beat his best set indoors this winter when he finished 3 rd in the senior event.  

The Humberside team finished 6^th overall but will look at what could have been if it wasn’t for a number of athletes pulling out due to holidays and injuries they would have no doubt of finished in third place having finished only 30 points behind.