North East Grand Prix Meeting 2

[7-May-2014]

Persistent rain and a strong breeze greeted the nine Blyth athletes who competed in the 2nd NEGP meeting of the season. Nonetheless, there were more good performances and PB’s along the way.

Young Adam Swalwell made had his first T&F outing of the season and went and knocked over a second off his 200m PB from last year. He followed it up with a 2:40.5 in the 800m, another PB.

Also in the 800m was Josh Fiddaman. Before today Josh had won every track race he’d competed in this season, and tonight was no exception. A clear victory and a big new PB (2:26.7) is likely to rank Josh in the top 50 in the country for U13 800m.

The High Jump competition seemed to coincide with the worse of the weather conditions, with Sam Bell, Bethan Sproat and myself trying to get shelter from the heavy rain under a tiny pink umbrella. Bethan unfortunately failed to clear her first height of 1.35m, whilst Sam did well to splash through the puddles and clear 1.40m. I managed to clear 1.45m but had to cut my competition short to dash off for other events.

Blyth’s new T&F athlete of the year Charlotte Ramsey finished a close 2nd in the U20 women’s 400m, running just outside her PB.

In the men's seeded 800m both Jake Jansen & Calum Storey were chasing PB’s, which they both achieved in style! Jake ran an aggressive 62 second 1st lap and was rewarded with a time of 2:10.3. Calum ran an equally strong race and knocked over 3 seconds from his PB.

A tough headwind made fast times in the 100m virtually impossible, however Dave Swalwell picked up joint 2nd place in the senior men's race. Calum was just outside his PB, but a strong run is on the cards in the right conditions.

In a close discus completion I finished last, although a throw of 2 metres further would have given me an unlikely victory.

By the time the 400m had come around the rain had subsided, although myself and Jake looked like drowned rats prior to the start. We both ran in the final heat and secured big PB’s, 56.2s for me and 59.2s for Jake.

So another exciting night complete, and hopefully there will be even more athletes at the next meeting which takes place at Gateshead on the 18th June.

Full results / fixtures: http://www.necaa.info/index.php/fixtures-2/negp

Daniel Njai