Ten Teens Tear iT up aT The Track
- dorianmatts
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
On a warm, but not oppressively so, evening at Blackridge Stadium (that's in Podsmead, Gloucester), ten of our Teens participated in the last Midsummer Open games of the season organised by C&CH, and they all did rather well.
In addition to the 4x 100m, Holly (13) and Aria (13) ran the 200m, Aria also doing the long jump, along with first-timer, Magnus (12), whereas Ed (12), Henry (14), Tippi (14), Toby (14) and Wilf (14) ran the 1500m. They were joined by Abi (12) and Beth (13) for the relay.
Following the change to even number years for the age categories this year, most of our athletes now find themselves in the younger year for their age category, which makes it tougher this year, but does mean they are competing with older athletes which hopefully will help drive them to better performances, and as you'll see below something did!
NB As the age groups have changed, most of these performances are new Club records at U14 and U16 level, as we didn't have any before. Previously, they were U13 and U15. Although, a bit of work for our T&F record keeper, the change gives our current Juniors and Teens the opportunity to set Club records, as some of the existing youth records were set in the 1980's.
In the order of the events for the evening:
Long Jump
Experienced athlete Aria was joined in the long jump by Magnus, in his first competition. Both were slightly down on their expectations but not by much, and you can't PB every time. Aria has been going over 4m fairly regularly recently, but tonight she was still jumping from short of the board which means she's giving up 15cm at least. She only got one jump off the board, her fifth one, but at least that's progress. She managed 3,93m in the end, so if she can make her run-up reliable then that would enable to go well beyond 4m repeatedly. Back to the long jump cage for practise? Magnus had hoped for 3.5m but fell a little short at 3.40m but as it was his first competition, it was really about gaining experience of how the competition works, in a non-school setting.
200m
We had Aria and Holly competing, but in different finals, and both have recently run well indicating something special might be on, and it was with both girls getting really good times, well under 30s. Holly's 28.16s being 4 hundredths outside her PB set in April. Aria's 29.54s was 3 tenths quicker than her previous PB set at the BMG in May. With those performances, hopes were high for the relay.
1500m
With five runners and 4 finals, it was good that three of our U15 XC team from last winter were in the same one : Henry, Toby and Wilf, and it was a close run thing. Henry won the final in under 4:54 with Wilf and Toby only five and six seconds behind in 4th and 6th places = a proper race. Henry's time was 4 seconds faster than his run in April so significant progress for him, so well done, Henry. But he was outdone by Toby who improved his PB by 5 seconds, so well done to Toby. It was WIlf's first track meeting so it will register as a PB on Power of 10, so well done, Wilf!
Ed and Tippi were together in the next final. Ed set a phenomenal PB in 2025, but has struggled in 2026 to get near it, but that changed on Wednesday when he got to within 2.2s of it, so a Season's Best, and he's running back into form with his 5:21.65. Tippi was our only female endurance runner on the evening. Last week, she was crowned Athlete of the (Deer Park) Sports Day, when she competed in half a dozen events, Tippi is obviously on a roll at the moment, as she took an axe to her PB, running 5:25.44, over 25 seconds of her mark from last year. Really well done, Tippi.
4x 100m relay
It's not unusual for Clubs to struggle to get 4 sprinters to make up a relay team, but not only did we manage that, but we had a U14 girls team!
Many thanks to Fritha for organising the Team.
The girls (running order : Beth, Abi, Holly, Aria) won their final in an amazing 58.09s, which is, on average, 14.5s per leg, showing how good their handovers were.
NB it was the fastest 4x100m run over the MSO series by over 1.5s, so really well done, girls.
In Summary
So that was 4 PBs (6 including Magnus's and Wilf's, as it was their first competition) and really close for Ed and Holly. There's not a PB for the relay team, but it does count as a Club record, if I can work out how to get all the girls names in.
These performances were not only improvements at an individual level, ie PBs or SBs, but also were all in the quality range for England Athletics PB Awards standards:
Long Jump : Aria L5; Magnus L1 (both Under 14)
200m : Holly L8, Aria L6 (both Under 14)
1500m : Henry L3, Tippi, Toby & Wilf L2 (all Under 16) ; Ed L2 (Under 14)
PS - Tippi missed Level 3 by less than a half of a second!
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to our Team Managers for the evening : Fritha Stavrakakis and Gemma Conway, without whom it would not have been such a great evening for the Club.
Heads Up
I will post about open track and field events in August and September, plus our first opportunity to compete in a T&F league : the Avon League, on Sunday 13th September in Yate, so get that in the diary.
Dorian
(sadly unable to be there)
RESULTS
Long Jump : Aria 3.93m; Magnus 3.40m
200m finals : 3rd Holly 28.16s; 1st Aria 29.54s
1500m finals : 1st Henry 4:53.75, 4th Wilf 4:59.15, 6th Toby 5:00.76 ; 3rd Ed 5:21.65, 6th Tippi 5:25.44
4x100m : 1st 58.09s (Beth, Abi, Holly & Aria)
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