Report from the Team Bath
Open meeting - 12th December 2009
Our junior athletes have
the opportunity to take part in competitive athletics provided by the
Sportshall competitions in winter. However, for our more senior
athletes, the winter training period can seem monotonous and
interminable, with little opportunity to gauge performance progress.
In a bid to spice up our
winter training, on Saturday 12th December a group of our
track & field athletes made the journey to the indoor facilities at Bath
University to take part in an open meeting organised by Team Bath.
The meeting was restricted
to athletes in the under-15 age group and upwards and it was great to
see the red and black contingent numbering nine along with four coaches
(and one minibus).
We’ll start with our
sprinters. The indoor track at Bath can only accommodate the 60m, it
being only a straight, but the newly relaid surface made for a super
running surface. There were a good many competitors from a number of
clubs, including some of our Team Dorset colleagues from Poole AC.
All our sprinters had good
runs. Karyn ran well in the Senior/U20 women age group, her first race
for some time, managing to reach the final and finishing in 5th
place. Sophie, in the same age group as Karyn, had a good run, it being
her first competition after a couple of years’ layoff due to injury.
Kyle, another one of our sprinters going through a rehabilitation
process after prolonged injury layoff, performed well finishing 5th
in the final for U17 men. Finally Ellie, in her first competition for
the club had a respectable maiden run in the U15 girls race.
We also had two hurdlers
who ran in the 60m hurdles event. Mo was one of two Masters athletes
taking part from Wimborne. Mo has been out of action for some time, but
has recently started training again and seems to have not lost her
technical ability over the hurdles. Matt also had a run out over the
barriers and came 2nd in the U15 boys event.
As well as our sprinters
and hurdlers, Wimborne also fielded a number of jumpers. As far as
success on the day is concerned, all the jumpers took top honours,
winning all their respective age groups.
In the Pole Vault,
Wimborne’s growing tradition of excellence in this event continued.
Trudi won the Senior Women category with 3.06m; Jack won the U17 men
category with a new PB of 3.26m; and Matt won the U15 boys category also
with a new PB of 2.96m at the same time exceeding last year’s English
School’s qualifying mark.
Our final jumper was
Hannah. Now in the U17 women age group, Hannah is looking forward to the
challenges of the triple jump. Her performances to date have been hugely
promising, and at Bath, despite carrying a leg injury she managed to win
her age group with a fine jump of 10.19m. Who knows what she will be
able to achieve when fully fit!
All these athletes have
now laid down a performance benchmark, and we are looking forward to
2010 and the next indoor competitions to see how they can progress. We
also hope that some of the athletes that were not able to make it to
Bath will join us for the next competition.
Steve Snook
