The best in the UK

In a glorious moment in the clubs history, yesterday in Bedford our U13 & U15 young athletes became UKYDL champions. From the moment that Team Captains Sam & Josh spoke some inspirational words at the Team Meeting on Friday evening, it was clear that we were going to give the finals everything we had.  Every point was crucial, every place mattered.  We were better prepared than ever before, we looked resplendent in the teams red hoodies, we had the most and loudest supporters, the throws were cheered, the jumps were cheered, every competitor running down the home straight in the red and white stripes was cheered until we were hoarse.  It was a special day, a day the children will remember for the rest of their lives and our U13 and U15 young athletes are now officially the best team in the UK. Before providing the detail of the day, it is important to applaud the competition particularly that from Edinburgh and Blackheath and Bromley who were magnaminous in defeat.  Three teams were well clear of the other 5 teams with just 10.5 points seperating the first 3.  Whilst we were over 20 points clear with 5 events to go, the last few events to go into the results programme were not particularly good for us so the announcement of the winners was as incredibly tense.  In the end we won by just 3 and a half points from Edinburgh and 10 and a half from Blackheath and Bromley.  The Edinburgh Team Manager came straight over to congratulate me as did the Team Manager from Blackheath & Bromley.  Both teams provided fierce but friendly competition and are a pleasure to compete against. We had an incredible 13 a string wins on the day, 9 a string second's and 5 a string third's.  We had 9 b string wins, 4 b string second's and 9 b string third's.  This is how the day unfolded. The very first action of the day was the U15 boys hammer where Josh Douglas threw out to 43.17m with a huge cheer coming from the stand as it landed.  This took the a string win and Bradley Jenvey achieved a massive pb of 28.17m to take b string silver.  All medalists took their place on the podium for a presentation after each event and this was the first of many featuring the red and white stripes on the top step of the podium.  Next up was the U15 girls long jump where Jasmyn Allen leapt out to 4.99m to take a string 3rd place with her first jump and Hannah Childs got progressively better with each of her 3 jumps to leap out to 4.72m and take b string silver.  Next up with the U13 high jumps both boys and girls both being strong events for the club.  In the boys event, b string Ruben Ormesher cleared 1.25m to take 5th place and a string Harry Crosby produced a pb of 1.48m to finish 2nd.  For the girls, Maisie Jeger and Lara Scott both cleared 1.48m this being a pb for Lara.  Countback determined that Lara finished in front of Maisie and therefore took a string silver with Maisie taking b string gold.  Next up was the U13 boys shot putt where Nathan Travers putted 7.23m and Tommy Brammer 6.76m for a string 6th and b string 5th respectively.  Now on to the U15 boys pole vault.  Both Oliver Thatcher and Ben Vaughan have been working hard with coaches Sam & Rich to enable the club to get some points from this event but both massively exceeded expectations.  Oliver leapt to a new pb of 2.30m to take the a string bronze and Ben also jumped a pb of 2.00m to take b string silver. Now it was time for the first track races the sprint hurdles.  U13 girl Jess Higgins got the club off to a great start on the track with a huge pb of 11.80 secs in the a string 70m hurdles for 2nd place.  Unfortunately b string Grace Colmer was disqualified after 2 false starts but despite her obvious disappointment stayed to cheer on the rest of the team throughout the day.   For the U13 boys, Harry Crosby continued his greatr work in the high jump by achieving another pb of 13.09 secs to come 4th in the a string 75m hurdles with Aidie Purse running 15.71 secs to finish 5th in the b string.  In the U15 girls 75m hurdles a string Ettie Hammond ran 12.45 secs for 4th place with b string Grace Griffiths running 12.43 secs to finish 3rd.  In the U15 boys 80m hurdles, Callum Gregson ran 13.29 secs to come 5th in a string and Wilf McKenzie ran 12.90 secs to take the same position in the b string.  Of the 8 sprint hurdlers taking part, 6 retain the same age group status for next year. Back to the field for the U15 girls hammer where Anna Merritt threw 38.08m to finish 4th in the a string and Jess Bennett threw 34.61m for a huge pb and gold in the b string.  Now it was the U15 boys long jump where Riley Woodman was yet another young athlete to achieve a pb with a leap of 5.26m for a string 4th place and Liam Higgins jumped 4.94m to take b string 5th.  Next up was U13 girls shot where Emily Eades Scott putted 8.63m for a string 2nd place and Charlotte Dunkley waited until her final putt to achieve a mark but she did it in style with a putt of 7.74m for b string bronze. It was now the turn of the 150/200m sprints.  First up on the track was the U13 girls 150m where Emily Eades-Scott (rushing straight from the shot putt) and Tabitha Proudley have an amazing record and they wern't going to let the matter of a UK final spoil that as both recorded a & b string victories going under 20 and 21 secs respectively.  Now the U13 boys 200m where Nolan Holloway despite being by far the smallest competitor in the field came 5th in the a string and Matt Dyer much preferring the longer distances came 8th in the b string.  Now the U15 girls 200m where Hannah Childs won the 2nd of 3 medals on the day by finishing 3rd in the a string in 26.65 secs.  Unfortunately Grace Griffiths was disqualified in the b string for a lane infringement.  Then came the giants amongst the U15 boys 200m where Finley Ryves ran 24.21 secs for a string 4th place and Jack McDonald ran 25.34 secs for b string bronze. Now it was the turn of Boys team captain Josh Wise to begin competing.  He didn't let the team down by throwing 38.10m for a string victory in the U15 boys discus with namesake Josh Douglas winning the b string throwing 36.00m.  Next was the U13 girls javelin where Jasmine Larsen added yet another throwing a string gold with a string victory with a throw of 29.44m with b string competitor Gracie Jenvey throwing 21.18m to take the bronze medal.  Back to the U15 HJ where Lucy Odell leapt 1.40m to take b string 6th and Lucy-Jane Matthews provided one of the stories of the day after coming back from a torrid two years of barely competing through injury to jump a pb of 1.55m to finish 2nd. Now came the 2 lap races on the track.  Maisie Jeger started the team off in style with a comfortable win in the U13 girls a string 800m with Abigail Warrington coming 5th in the b string.  For the U13 boys, Tommy Brammer was 2nd in the a string with yet another pb of 2 mins 20.25 secs and Nolan Holloway was 4th in the b string.  For the U15 girls, Elizabeth Adamson was 8th in the a string and Olivia Reavey was 7th in the b string.  The U15 boys race was the closest and most exciting of the day.  James Jerram quite literally threw himself over the line to record the same time of 2 mins 6.49 secs as Peter Guy from Blackheath & Bromley but get the all important win on the photo finish.  Callum Gregson did the job of filling in the b string event and was 7th. The next 45 minutes or so were a golden period in the field for the club and where the match was won.  It began with the Josh's in the U15 boys shot putt.  Josh Wise fresh from English national success the previous weekend putted 13.92m for a string gold and Josh Douglas added no less than 1m to his pb by putting 12.14m to win the b string gold.  Two more medals followed in the U13 boys javelin as Francis Moore threw a huge pb of 32.98m for a string bronze and Matt Dyer threw 24.38m for b string bronze.  The U15 girls discus is a rich event for the club with 4 girls inside the UK top 32 and therefore it was always likely to bring good points and so it proved with Sam Callaway winning a string with a throw of 34.94m and Anna Merritt winning b string with a throw of 30.38m.  Next came the U13 girls long jump and yet another double victory with Tabitha Proudley taking the a string with a jump of 4.65m and Maisie Jeger winning b string gold with a leap of 4.49m leaving it until her 3rd jump to record a proper mark. Back to the track for the short sprints.  First up was the U13 girls 75m where Emily Eades-Scott suffered her first league defeat of the season allbeit by just 3 hundredths of a second to finish 2nd in the a string 75m with Tabitha Proudley coming 3rd in the b string by similar fractions.  Nolan Holloway and Lewis Drake were both 7th in the U13 boys a and b string 100m respectively.  Elisha Parham ran just outside her pb to finish 6th in the U15 girls a string 100m in 13.43 secs and Jasmyn Allen did run a pb of 13.46 secs to come 4th in the b string.  You could have thrown a blanket over the first 6 to finish in the U15 boys a string 100m but Finley Ryves got hugely valuable points by a perfectly timed dip that saw him finish 3rd.  Wilf McKenzie was 7th in the b string. Next up was the U15 girl pole vault and one of the stories of the day.  Shannon & Poppy have both been training well with Sam clearing the staring height of 1.70m with a view to getting the team points in the final.  As we all know the pressure of competing is completely different from training and to date the girls haven't got over a height in competition.  Poppy had a very close try for her 2nd attempt at 1.70m but alas she no heighted in her 3 attempts so we move on to Shannon.  After 2 really close failures and a couple of aborted run ups for attempt 3, in floods of tears and with dozens of supporters willing her on at trackside and hundreds more in the stand, Shannon got over 1.70m to one of the loudest cheers of the day.  Another clearance at 1.80m, Shannon secured 6th place in the a string, 5 valuable points and a hug from her Mum and Dad. Next was the U15 boys Javelin where Josh Wise came 2nd in the a string with a throw of 48.49m and Bradley Jenvey took the same place in the b string with a throw of 40.72m just outside his pb.  The conditions had now deteriated with the rain pouring down and we move to the U15 boys high jump.  With puddles of water appearing no pb's were going to be achieved on this event but Ben Vaughan jumped 1.40m for 7th place in the b string and Callum Gregson leapt to 1.60m for 5th place in the a string.   The U15 girls shot brought another huge points haul with Samantha Callaway taking a string gold with a putt of 11.99m and Anna Merritt putting 9.45m for b string silver. Back to the track for the 300m & 12/1500m races.  In the U15 girls 300m Hannah Childs bagged her 3rd medal of the day with hugely impressive finishing speed to take a string silver in 42.22 secs with Grace Griffiths disqualified from the b string for a lane infringement.  In the boys 300m, James Jerram slowed considerably with an ankle injury which also ruled him out of the relay but he did at least complete the race finishing 7th in the a string and Jack McDonald ran 40.04 secs to take b string bronze.  In the girls 1200m race, Meg Hulbert who landed back from holiday at 1am in the morning was always going to find the going hard and finished 7th in the a string with Issy Robinson finishing in the same place in the b string.  One of the performances of the day came in the next race the U13 boys 1500m where Matt Dyer destroyed the rest of the field in a lightning quick 4 mins 36.34 secs to win the a string and Ben Brown collected maximum points for the club by winning the b string in 4 mins 50.72 secs.  Izzy Richardson was 7th in the U15 girls a string 1500m in just over 5 mins and Phoebe Moriarty-Palios was 6th in the b string.  In the U15 boys 1500m Toby Hale was 5th in the a string and Ben Williams ran a great race to be 3rd in the b string running just outside his pb. Two field events to go, these being the U13 boys long jump which saw Harry Crosby and Ruben Ormesher come 5th in a and b string respectively and the U15 girls javelin where Sam Callaway got her 3rd a string gold medal of the day with a throw of 33.88m and Poppy Wright took b string bronze with a throw of 26.09m. Just the 6 relays to come beginning with the unbeaten quartet of Maisie Jeger, Tabitha Proudley, Jess Higgins and Emily Eades-Scott in the U13 girls 4 x 100m and they didn't let the club down with yet another victory this timne recorded in 53.85 secs.  The U13 boys 4 x 100m quartet of Harry Crosby, Ruben Ormesher, Lewis Drake and Nolan Holloway were 6th.  The U15 girls 4 x 100m team of Laura Jones, Ettie Hammond, Jasmyn allen and Elisha Parham were also 6th and the U15 boys quartet of Sam Prince, Finley Ryves, Wilf McKenzie and Josh Wise were 4th.  The U15 girls quartet of Grace Griffiths, Elizabeth Adamson, Elisha Parham and Hannah Childs were also 4th and in the final race of the day the U15 boys 4 x 300m quartet of Jack McDonald, Sam Prince, Liam Higgins and Finley Ryves were also 4th. An agonising wait thern followed as all the scores were recorded and we went inside out of the pouring rain to be declared UKYDL lower age group champions. Final Scores (of top 3) as follows. Southampton 612 Edinburgh 608.5 Blackheath & Bromley 601.5 See below some pictures from this incredible day.