Young athletes end season on a high.

Byline: BILL MCGUIRK

LOCAL athletes were in good form as they brought the curtain down on their track season by representing the North Eastern Counties in the Northern Athletics Inter-Counties Championships at Robin Park, Wigan.

The team consisted of under-15 and under-17 teams, and while all did well, it was the under-15 boys squad who were celebrating after winning the team trophy and pushing the strong Yorkshire and Lancashire squads into the minor positions.

In the under-15 boys section the North East had three winning performances with all three athletes producing efforts just below their lifetime bests.

Terry Morgan won the javelin with a throw of 46:11 metres, Ryan King won the long jump with a leap of 5:76m, while Patrick O'Connor won the high jump with a clearance of 1:65m after earlier volunteering to line up in the 80m hurdles where he picked up valuable thirdplace points.

Josh Simpson finished third in a good discus contest with a throw of 33:54m, a measurement which was nearly a metre further than his previous best.

In the 800 metres Jack Reed gave a good account of himself to finish in second place in 2min 06.73secs.

In the under-17 men's section, Yorkshire pushed the North East into second place overall among the 10 counties competing. Nevertheless, the NE once again had numerous top three places.

There were victories, and pbs for Michael Priestley in the 3,000 metres (9:07.67) and Jordan Bowser in the hammer (48:52m), while Jake Archer ran a good tactical race to take victory in the 800 metres in 2:01.12.

Alan Toward had to be content with second place in both the shot (13:38m) and Discus (41:78m), while there were third place finishes for Nick Wood in the 100m hurdles (14:34s), Marcus Cram in the 1,500m (4:11.33), Mark Purkis in the pole vault (2:30m) and for Scott Hall in the triple jump (12:09m).

There were no wins in the under-15 girls section, but Chloe Price produced a pb to finish runner-up in the 800 metres in 2:22.83, while Rachel Highfield ran 13.46s to finish in third place in the 100 metres.

In the under-17 women's age group, Katherine Bulmer won the shot putt competition with 10:49m, while in the track events Rebecca Oram finished in second place in the 3,000 metres (11:05.97) and there were third place finishes for Steph Loraine in the 800 metres (2:25.98) and Jayne Hansom in the 80m hurdles (12.49s)

CAPTION(S):

TEAM BONDING: A number of the North East team take time off

Print Get the Mag Weekly Updates