The Medway & Maidstone Under 13 & 15 girls and boys’ teams travelled down to Lewes on Saturday for the first UK YDL meeting of the year. They made a great start to their season in the sunshine with the team finishing 2nd overall behind last year’s winners Brighton and Hove AC.
The girls team included six athletes who had never competed for the club before mixed in with some of the more experienced athletes. The day got off to a strong start with Megan Currier setting a personal best performance of 13.9 sec in the A string sprint hurdles closely followed by Grace O’Connell setting her own PB in the B string for the U13’s.
These were the first of 34 PBs for the girls on the day, three of which went to first time competitor Rachel Anderson who set best times in the 200m & 800m and jumped a best of 1.25m in the high jump.
The stand out performance of the day went to Gypsy Nash who has just moved up to the Under 15s from the U13s. Her hammer throw of 41.44m was not only good enough to win the competition, but also broke the club record and placed her in the top five nationally.
The day was rounded off by the 4x300m team of Katie Rothery, Maya Marriner, Erin Hughes & Keira Rose who stormed to a convincing victory, missing out on a new club record by less than half a second. An amazing achievement when taking into account that the four girls had already completed a total of eight events between them before the race.
The boys also made a great start gaining 30 PBs & 5 SBs.
There were wins for Michael Uzozie in the U15 200m and 300m, Luke Nash (SB) in the U15 300M, Hayden Gear (PB) in the U13 1500m, Kai Prendergast (PB) in the U15 shot put and Cameron Isaac (PB) in the U13 javelin.
There were second places for Kai Prendergast (PB) in the U15 800m, Jake Foster (PB) in the U13 800m, Joe Hollands and Cameron Featherstone both gained PBs in the U15 1500m, Alistair Shelley (SB) in the U13 1500m, Kieran Isaac (PB) in the U15 shot put, Jack Morris (PB) in the U13 shot put, Harry Blake (PBs in both the U15 discus and hammer) and the U15 4 x 300m relay.
Further points were scored by Kieran Isaac and Ben Lineker (PB) in the U15 100m, William Maloney and Jack Morris who gained PBs in both the U13 100m and 200m, Luke Nash (SB) in the U15 200m, Callum Featherstone (PB) in the U15 800m, Noah Ryan (PB) in the U13 800m, Finn Rodgers earned PBs in the U15 80m hurdles, high jump and long jump, Kai Prendergast (PB) in the 80m hurdles, Alistair Shelley and Cameron Isaac both gained PBs in the U13 high jump, Ben Lineker (SB) in the U15 long jump, Stanley Cook (SB) and Jake Foster in the U13 long jump, Stanley Cook (PB) in the U13 shot put, Joe Hollands (PB) in the U15 discus, Harry Blake and Joe Hollands (both securing PBs) in the U15 javelin and Elliot Chamberlain (PB) in the U13 hammer.
Not to be outdone, there were also PBs for Ollie Rodwell, Cameron Isaac and Stanley Cook in the non scoring 100m and Elliot Chamberlain in the non scoring 800m.
Well done all.
Photos Here