Athletes excel in Scottish schools event
Fourteen of Shetland’s most talented young athletes attended the Scottish Schools Athletics Championships at the weekend, winning five medals and returning with a string of season’s best performances.
Emma Leask took two silver medals in the 400m and the 800m, with season’s best performances in both, while Jordan Morrison took bronze in the javelin, also with a season’s best.
Katie Bristow took bronze in a tough 3,000m in a season’s best time and Sophie May Leyland took bronze in the high jump, just missing silver on count back, with a personal best performance.
In the sprints events Haydn Thomason made it through to the 100m final, finishing fifth overall and qualified for the 200m final with a season’s best time.
Megan Smith was unlucky not to make the finals in the 100m and 200m but made the final in the 300m, finishing strongly in sixth place. Allie Elphinstone and Marc Lawson found their races tough but both gained valuable experience of this level of competition.
In the 800m Lauren Odie ran a very strong race in the 800m and was unlucky not to make the final.
In the endurance races the Shetland athletes competed very well with Katie making the 1,500m final and good performances from Bobby Bristow in the 1,500m final and the 5,000m final in which he ran a season’s best and Jonathan Adam in the 1,500m and 3,000m, recording new personal bests in each.
In the field events Sean Maver made the final in the long jump and narrowly missed out on the medals in the triple jump. Allie took fifth place in the long jump final and the youngest members of the team, Sam Maver and Holly King, gained a great deal of experience in the javelin and long jump respectively, Sam making the final and Holly jumping very well.
The under-20 age group championships were held at the same venue the following day and three medals were claimed by the Shetland athletes.
Silvers went to Jordan Morrison in the javelin and Sophie May Leyland in the high jump while Sean Maver took the bronze in the triple jump with a season’s best performance.
The remaining performances deserve credit as all the Shetland athletes were competing in their first senior competition on the mainland and were following a tough two days of performances at the schools event.
On the track, all athletes were involved in finals with Haydn taking fifth in the 100m and 400m, Emma taking sixth in a very strong 400m field and good performances from Allie and Marc in the 100m. Allie also took fourth place in the long jump event, rounding off a very successful weekends.
The group are now back in Shetland, resting and putting the final touches to their preparations for this weekend’s junior inter-county battle with Orkney. The athletics is on Sunday at the Clickimin track with the first event starting at 12.30pm.
