They Are The Future.

SPORTSHALL ATHLETICS – UK National Final
 

Report – Paul Bearman

For the uninitiated Sportshall is an indoor form of track and field for young athletes and it could be construed as the junior athletics equivalent of Rugby 7’s or Cricket’s T20…..fast and furious. It provides a safe and warm environment for young athletes to run and use specialist equipment to train during the cold and dark winter months.

The programme focusses on fitness, mobility, flexibility and multi-skill development that in fact helps to provide a grounding for all sports.

Apart from encouraging young people to improve their fitness etc. it also promotes friendship, team spirit and most importantly fun.

In a winter where, for various reasons, the Warwickshire Sportshall League hasn’t run, it left a massive void in the winter competition calendar but between Stratford and our partners at Rugby & Northampton AC, we ran a “virtual” league and without regular training or competition, combined to put a Warwickshire team together in the regional championships that resulted in the Under 15 boys winning and thus went to the national final held in Stoke as West Midlands champions.

In the past many established international athletes have competed in the finals and this year’s strap line was “You Are The Future” and judging by the amount of quality performances it’s reasonable to think we can expect to see some of the athletes going on to representative honours.

The National final against other county teams from the length and breadth of the UK is a big step up in the quality of the opposition with Birmingham representing the 3 other age groups for the West Midlands. In the U15s apart from Warwickshire, competing teams came from Surrey, Buckinghamshire, Avon, Norfolk, Leicestershire & Rutland, Afan Need Tawe (South Wales), Lancashire and North Yorkshire. 

The U15s event is a combination of all 6 of the team members having to do a run, throw and jump to find the individual All Rounder champion with the maximum points across 3 events being 300. The combined scores are collated to give the overall team score.

The U15 boys squad was comprised of 6 athletes from Stratford and Jacob Vural from R&N with Will Hovell as the non-scoring reserve, replacing Ethan Winning from the regional team who was on holiday.

I think it’s fair to say the whole team had mixed fortunes in their individual events, but they held their own against some superb and stiff competition and the team finished a very surprising but remarkable 3rd overall with 1189 points behind Buckinghamshire (1230 points) and the dominant Surrey team (1370 points).

Will Marriott         (10^th 255 points)

Alex Wood         (14^th 249points)

Jacob Vural         (16^th 248 points)

Sam McKenzie     (25^th 227 points

Toby Thomas        (30^th 213 points)

Matteo Martinengo    (32^nd 211 points)

Will threw a PB in the Shot of 8.07m

Alex ran a stunning race in the 4 Lap that earned him the gold medal and he partnered Will to the silver medal in the gruelling and tactical 8 Lap Paarlauf that is run at top speed ….a real test of speed endurance. 

The 4 x 2 lap relay is a test of pure speed and teamwork and run in heats followed by a final. The boys successfully secured their spot in the final highlighted by their slick baton changes and hard sprinting.  

The final was arguably the race of the day and was run at a blistering pace. The other teams loaded the first leg with some of their quickest runners and Jacob did well to hold his own. He was followed by Toby and then Matteo who both got the team in contention for a medal and gave Sam a fighting chance on the last leg. Without doubt his legs have never moved so quickly and he reeled in the opposition and dipped on the line to win the bronze medal by the thickness of a vest.

A terrific end to a terrific day of competition and it meant all the team went home with medals jangling around their necks. It was a good way to finish an exciting event and finish the winter competitions with a flourish and something for the team to be very proud representing their county.

Carolyne was the joint team manager and did a lot of the background work pulling things together and told the team “it was a great result against the odds and you should all be very proud of yourselves for doing so well in such a competitive field. Great sportsmanship between you supporting each other. This year was very last minute to get our teams to the Regional but worth every minute to give you all such an amazing opportunity! 

Reflecting on the competition; I’ve been involved in Sportshall for 30 years, many of them supporting the Warwickshire team with some terrific highs and this achievement ranks right up there as one of the best performances by a Warwickshire team.

We started off with a “virtual league” and the 8 lads (not forgetting Ethan) performed out of their skins to produce a 3rd place finish and all came home with medals. What made it more special is that the other teams were a mixture of athletes from various clubs and we had 6 from Stratford and 1 from R&N.

I said to the team afterwards “remember these days…  camaraderie, “brothers in arms”, teamwork, supporting each other, friendship and having fun….. because I will.

Brighton Marathon

Report – Mark Barker

My first marathon event, Brighton took place on 7th April.   Many in the club had recommended Brighton to me and it did not disappoint.

The day started with a traffic free journey to the football stadium and the buses were lined up waiting to take us to the event village.   Given there were 20,000 runners with their families,  all parts of the event were superbly organised.

The race started in Preston Park, just on the outside of the town.   The first part of the race is around the town, it then goes out onto the sea front, climbs up along the cliff tops to Rottingdean, where it turns back into Brighton, heads out into Hove with a finish along the promenade.    It was a lovely sunny day however it was rather windy, which I would later find to be a bit of a challenge! 

Being my first marathon and with another big event next month, the plan was to keep it really steady, not get caught up in the excitement and go out too quickly.   Whilst I did try to keep to the plan, I realised by mile 18 that I was slowing and it was going to be a tough finish.    What helped me were the crowds of people supporting all along the route, I never felt on my own.  The atmosphere around the town and seafront was fantastic.  There were thousands of people lining the streets, live bands, choirs, I must have heard Queens “don’t stop me know” 30 times!  

By the time I got to mile 20, my brain was counting down in parkruns, 2 more to go!  This was mainly around the town of Hove, whilst this for me this was the most challenging part of the race, with the residents and supporters offering sweets, oranges, more water, it got me through.   Once I got to the promenade, it was less than half a parkrun to go!   With the brilliant support, I managed to pick up the pace and enjoy the finish, coming in at 4:26.  My only thing I then had on my mind was finding a pub and having a cold beer with my son!