Scottish Athletics League Match 1

Our Scottish Athletics League season opened at Grangemouth yesterday with a few challenges.  Exams, British University Championships and Scottish Athletics 5km Road championships all took athletes (from each club) away from the track and field yesterday.

Despite those competing commitments, we took 14 athletes and 3 officials to take part in 31 events.  We began with a double win on the field, Tom Hunt and Patrick Millar winning their respective A and B string Javelin contests.  It would be fair to say that things became much more challenging for us thereafter!  Whilst there was a good trickle of points from most events, it became apparent that we were spread a little thin, with some of us taking part in four or five events each.

Other top performances of the day came from Cole Milne in high jump, 100m and 200m, Tom Hunt in 110m hurdles, Malcolm Lang ran 16:12 for 5km and 5,000m on consecutive days and  Elliot Mackay ran under 57s for 400m.

Although we finished 7th on the day, there are many positives and obvious areas for improvement.  Central AC in 4th only scored 30 points more than us.  With 2 pole vaulters and a second high hurdler or steeplechaser we can bridge that gap.  There were a few things which didn’t play out in our favour yesterday afternoon, with very narrowly missed points scoring standards and a painful pair of relays.  Overburdened athletes won’t be so stretched if a few other club members can join us at future matches.  Younger athletes continue to take early steps into senior competition and are helped on their way by experienced team mates and competitors.  Had we translated those performances into division 2, we would have finished comfortably inside the top 2. The results for Match 1 can be found here.

The next match is at Grangemouth on 16th June, with slight adjustments to the track timetable to accommodate the 10,000m.  Please get in touch as soon as possible to take your place on the team sheet.