Wakefield Open - 3rd April 2010

Images courtesy of Neil Pattison and Matt Hammond

Report ‘Scunthorpe Girls on form at Wakefield’ by Matt Hammond

Following on from the curtain rises to the new track season at Quibell park 12 members of Scunthorpe and District athletic club ventured across to the Spring open meeting at Wakefield and  it was the ladies who were on form and grabbed a treasure trove of medals.

First saw Kate PATTISON carry on from her excellent indoor form to grab 2 medals. First she competed in the under 15 girls shot putt and won with 9.42m just 2 cm short of her personal best recorded indoors this winter , but still far enough to rank her in the top 20 outdoors so far this year. Next she moved up to the u17 age group to enter the discus and despite competing against athletes over 3 years older than herself she finished second and for the second weekend running achieved the English schools qualifying distance which puts her second on the early season rankings at her own u15 age group. Stephanie O’CONNOR showed good early season form finishing second in the 200m only just outside the English schools qualifying time and putting her in the top 25 UK ranking. She followed this up with 4th in the 100m.

The older girls then kept the medal tally going with Stephanie’s older sister Georgina taking over half a second of her 80m hurdles PB to grab a silver medal. Alice KAYE then matched her achievement in the 200m and 300m, although happy with the medals Alice is so far struggling to match her outstanding speed of last year which saw her qualify for national finals.

Putting in her first appearance of the year was Beth PATTISON, it was good to see Beth making a return after her 2009 season was totally wrecked through injury. She is hoping to return to her best from 2008 which saw her running in the English schools finals. It was therefore somewhat of a surprise for her coach to suggest she   run a 800m instead of her favoured sprint events in order to improve her strength, but Beth rose to the challenge and she still did herself proud finishing 7th to Georgina’s 8th.

The boys had to settle for 2 medals both in the under 20’s men. With Josh BONES taking a gold medal in the u 20’s men’s long jump , with an excellent jump just outside his Personal best and showing good form prior to his international trip to Malta. Then Daniel HARMES, achieving a bronze medal in the 110m hurdles after matching his personal best from last year.  Although the younger boys didn’t quite make the medal podium they showed that winter training has gone well with a number of personal bests. Jacob HAMMOND achieved  two personal bests in the 80m hurdles where he took nearly half a second off his best to finish 4th and the long jump where he added 30 cm on his best to finish 9th. Not to be outdone Anthony GILLATT added 50 cm to his Long jump best for 11th place and Andrew HARMES ran his quickest ever 100m. The only slightly disappointing performance was Ashley WREN who like Josh was using the event as a warm up before going to Malta. Ashley who has made improvements in his speed and strength this winter is struggling to put that into technique and had 3 no jumps in the long jump. Although his first jump which was only fractionally over the board was a huge effort and would probably challenge his best from last year. Hopefully as Ash comes to terms with his new run up a large jump is just around the corner.

One athlete Anthony GILLATT then decided to travel South the following day in search of yet more Personal bests. He was rewarded when he added over 5m to his best in the hammer at the Mansfield open meeting. Anthony is still throwing off one turn and as he masters more turns he will surely throw much further. He then competed in both the shot and long jump but by this time some fatigue had set in and he failed to do as well as he had done the previous day at Wakefield

Results

U15 Girls

U17 Women 

Discus

2nd Kate Pattinson     27.23m       

Junior/Senior Women

800 Metres

2nd Rachel Fisk        2.25.96       

U15 Boys

U20 Men

Mansfield Open Meeting

U15 Boys