NECAA Indoor T&F Champs
[14/15-Feb-2015]
The confined environment
of the Gateshead indoor track always adds to the tense and exciting nature of
the NECAA indoor championships, and 2015 proved to be no exception with the 4
Blyth athletes all having weekends that will stay long in the memory.
Saturday was field event
day, and started out with myself competing in the senior men’s triple jump in
the morning. In a very close event I managed to pull out a final jump new PB of
12.01m to just snatch the silver medal. The highlight of the day came in the
afternoon as two of our very talented juniors, Hannah Ross-Knight and Ellie
Morris were making their championship debuts in the U13 high jump. Ellie had
been in great form coming into the event, but struggled a bit with nerves and
did not jump at her best. 4th place is still something she can be proud of, and
she will have far better days ahead this season based on her undoubted talent.
Hannah was competing for the first time this winter, and this was simply going
to be a learning event. However, she exceeded all expectations by first
clearing 1.15m on her final attempt to show great character, and then sailed
over 1.20m on the first attempt to not only set a huge personal best, but win
the bronze medal. In the long jump I managed an indoor PB, which still placed
me last in a strong competition.
Sunday saw the entrance
of the sprinters and the hurdlers and the indoor track was full to the rafters
with athletes and spectators. The hurdles started the day, and Hannah was back in
action with her first ever indoor 60m hurdles. Having been working on a
3-stride technique in training, she executed this skill superbly in the heats,
to qualify for the final. In the final she made a great start, and again
managed to maintain her technique to finish 5th in a PB of 11.8s. Meanwhile, I
took part in the senior men’s hurdles, I managed a clean race, and for the
first time in competition demonstrated a basic hurdling technique and was able
to finish 2nd and win the silver in 9.44s. In the flat 60m sprint Hannah ran
sub-10 in her first ever race over this distance, to finish a weekend that she
should be proud of.
Dave Swalwell
as expected provided the icing on the cake, and brought home Blyth’s only gold
of the weekend. In the veteran men’s race Dave stormed away like a steam train
to win in 7.63s. Dave also ran in the senior men’s race, and was on course to
run even faster before an injury niggle slowed him on the approach to the
finish. His recovery from injury less than 6 months ago has been spectacular.
Regards
Dan