Away from all of the marathon excitement in London on Sunday, was the first fixture of the North East Youth Development League. This season our Juniors have been lucky enough to be able to join forces with Tyne Bridge Harriers to form a joint team in Division 2 of the league.
It’s an ideal way for the Juniors to get some experience in competing in various track and field disciplines, and much like the Senior/Veteran T&F fixtures it’s a lot of fun (and healthy competition!) and at a very good standard.
We had six juniors at the first fixture, and there were great performances all round, especially as for many this was their T&F debut, or they tried completely new events.
Notably, we had a couple of Heaton wins – Thomas Smith in the U13 Boys 75m hurdles, and Alex Smith in the U15 Boys 1500m in a credible time of 04:36:69. Alex was also 2nd in the U15 Boys 300m, and Anna Palacin got 2nd in the U17 Women’s 1500m. The combined Tyne Bridge/Heaton U15 Boys also got a win in the 4x100m relay.
Hannah Baqir, Leila Burden and Alex Parkin all competed in several events each and committed themselves fantastically. Leila and Hannah ran the 4x100m with Poppy and Eliza from Tyne Bridge, and showed some great teamwork and camaraderie getting together to practice their handovers and sort out the team order.
On their first fixture as a combined team, Tyne Bridge/Heaton finished in 5th place of 8 teams – well done to all on a great start!
| FINAL MATCH POINTS | |
| CLS/Durham | 715.5 |
| Mid’bro/Houg/Derw | 618 |
| Blyth/Alnwick | 519 |
| Blay/Walls/Gos | 463 |
| Heaton/Tyne B | 430 |
| New Marske | 413.5 |
| Morpeth | 343 |
| Tynedale/Prudoe | 261 |
All in all it was a really good day out, and we hope to see even more juniors at the next fixture @ Shildon on the 19th May.
