Despite a noticeable chill in the air as we approached the first match of the season for the Under 13s at the K2 track in Crawley on Friday evening, it was good to get to a track and see so many athletes enjoying themselves in the Sussex U13 League. We had a mixture of debutantes and returnees, with a number of athletes having moved up from last year’s Academy.
The competition is made up of two athletes from each club scoring points in the different disciplines and non-scoring races to give everyone an opportunity to enjoy competing and demonstrate the progress they’re making in training. The night got underway at 1830 with the girls 75m, long jump and javelin competitions and the boys high jump and discus shortly followed by the boys 75m.
There were some fantastic performances where in the 75m Harriet Walter came 4th in the A string in a time of 12.1s and Holly Grange came 4th in the B string in 12.2s for the girls. In the boys races, Lukas Togwell was 3rd in the A string in 11.3s and Lucas Easterfield 4th in the B string in 12.8s. Myah Nassiri competed in the non-scoring 75m, clocking 12.5s. Over in the high jump, Ethan Dean represented the club and leaped to 3rd place with a height of 1.15m.
As the evening progressed, we had the 600m and 70m hurdles for boys and girls with Isla Petrie crossing the line in 3rd in 2m08.1s in the 600m and after a short recovery from her sprint, Myah then completed the 70m hurdles, gaining a very good 3rd place in 16.2s.
Back on the field, we saw the boys shot putt and long jump taking place at the same time as the girls discus. Ethan Dean jumped 3.43m in the long jump to gain 4th place in the A string and Leo Tongsom also came 4th in the B string with 2.79m.
With the evening moving on at pace, there was great speed from Harriet, Lukas and Lucas in the 150m. Harriet was 3rd in 24.8s, beating athletes from Haywards Heath and Worthing in a close finish. Lukas came 4th in the A string in 23.2s and Lucas was 5th in the B string in 25.4s. Meanwhile, over in the girls shot putt, Isla and Holly secured fantastic 2nds in both the A and B string with 4.38m and 3.91m respectively.
As the evening drew to a close, we finished up with the relays. Despite the cold and not having practiced, both the girls and boys teams did brilliantly. The girls (Harriet, Myah, Holly, Isla) finished 4th in their race in a time of 66.7s and the boys (Lucas, Leo, Lukas, Ethan) finished 5th in their race in a time of 64.7s.
Congratulations to the team, thank you to our officials and we look forward to the next competition on Friday 24th May in Worthing.
