Track and Field
Match result from Sunday’s Youth Development League Play-Off match held at our track in York.: 1st City of York 620 points, 2nd Trafford 580.5 points, 3rd Sale 507 points, 4th Kingdom 439 points, 5th Preston 422.5 points.
It was a brilliant team effort from all athletes, officials and parents which resulted in a big win. We are going to the National Finals in Manchester on Sunday September 4th!
Once again, there were some big performances on the day:
U20 Men – Ed Brown – PB in the 2000m s/c – 7:29.81, Adam Pearson (U17) PB in the triple jump – 11.14m, Aaron Rutter PB in the Hammer – 24.79m, a Season’s best time of 45.37 for the 4x100m squad of Will Meigh (U17), Ben Pearson, William Reid and Amhra Stott.
U20 Women – Carmen Brooks PB in the 400m – 64.59 and PB in the Hammer 16.43m. We actually only had 3 x U20 female athletes competing on the day so congratulations to them for all they did and congratulations to all of the U17 females who stepped-up on the day to compete in the older age group.
It is interesting that of the 72 events in the U20 age group we only had one first-place finish – Carmen Brooks in the Discus!
U17 Men had a fantastic day – Levi Cload with a PB in the 100m – 12.31 and also in the 100m hurdles – 16.56, Alfie Church with a PB in the 200m – 25.23, Asa Howard with a PB in the 400m – 57.45, Isaac Bastow with a PB in the 800m – 2:14.34, Asa Howard with a PB in the 800m – 2:25.38. Beau Jamieson-Wannell PB in the 1500m – 4:36.66, Alex Jones PB in the 1500m – 5:02.59 and in the 1500m s/c – 5:22.09, Nate Brady PB in the 100m hurdles – 16.95 and in the triple jump – 9.36m, Edan Petrie PB in the 400m hurdles – 62.51, Will Hobson PB in the long jump – 5.68m, Will Meigh PB in the Triple Jump – 9.56m, Isaac Henson PB in the pole vault – 3.80m. Robbie Leap PB in the shot 9.70m and the discus – 22.09m, Bryce Farmer-Beasley PB in the Hammer – 32.30m, Lewis Rutter PB in the Hammer – 24.95m
U17 Women – Rosie Hickling PB in the 100m – 12.89, Sonya Chechik PB in the 200m – 26.80, Louisa Birch PB in the 300m hurdles – 50.70, Kiri Shaw PB in the Hammer – 16.10m, Season’s best time of 3:01.54 in the 4x300m relay for Kathryn Clague, Kiri Shaw, Grace green-Hemmings and Imogen Barrett.
Special mentions to: Frances Hogg for stepping-up again to compete in all her events as an U20 despite only being an U17 athlete. Lottie Langan for an amazing 4th leg of the 4 x 400m relay where the Sale athlete attempted to pass her with 220m to go and Lottie absolutely refused to let her go past – amazing grit and determination to help the team to a relay win. Carmen Brooks and Kiri Shaw for agreeing to throw the Hammer about an hour before the competition and both doing brilliantly. Lottie Langan, Amy Kennedy and Jess Robertson-Dover for doing multiple distance events at every YDL and often sacrificing their own performances for the greater good of the team.
Congratulations to all the athletes who took part – there were a number of comments throughout the day (and since) regarding your utmost support for each other – it is wonderful to witness.
Also a big thank you to Parents, Grandparents and Officials for their support throughout the day.
The National Final is on Sunday September 4th 2022. Please make sure you are available to compete and encourage as many family members to come along and support you and the team on the day.
A bit of context: In early 2017 I decided to start coaching the young athletes at the club to try and create a better pathway through from the Primary age group to the adult training groups. We had a lot of very young children attending training sessions and we had some busy senior groups but not much in between for the 12-16 year-olds. In mid-July 2017 I went to watch our YDL Lower team in their final match of the season at Rotherham. There were very few athletes taking part, fewer parents watching and our poor club officials were run-ragged. It was sad to see so many events with no CoYAC representation. The team were relegated and would begin the following season in the lowest local league. I took over the running of the YDL Lower team for the following season. In 2018 we were promoted as Champions and won every match. In 2019 we repeated this feat. 2020 should have seen us competing in the Premier League but COVID struck and the league was cancelled. In 2021 we competed in a re-formed local league and once again won every match. In 2021 I also took over the running of the YDL Upper team as many of the athletes in my coaching groups were now competing in the U17 age group. The Upper team won 3 of their 4 matches and won the league.
In 2022 we were finally able to test ourselves against the best teams in the North-east area and both the Lower and Upper teams have won every match this season and finished top of their respective leagues. Both teams also won their play-off matches against the best teams in the North-West and have qualified for the National Finals on 3 / 4 September. City of York AC has never had a team at the National Finals before so to achieve this with both teams is amazing – I love it when a 5-year plan comes together! It should also be noted that our Senior team also won their league this year and a number of our U20 and U17 athletes from the YDL Upper squad stepped-up to compete.
The club is in a very good place and none of this could be achieved without the support of a large number of club volunteers – particularly the coaches who work with the athletes every week. Now is the time to push on! CoYAC now has a good reputation for developing young athletes and we want to continue this work. If you are a parent or grandparent and you feel that you could help in some way then please contact me and we will get you involved. We still have a waiting list of over 130 children who would like to be doing athletics each week and we would like to reduce that number if we can. We also have lots of 15-18 year-olds who are ready to take the next step with their athletics careers and they will need coaching and support with that. We particularly need help coaching the throwing events so if anyone has a passion in this area please let me know.
The National trend is one of clubs struggling to attract and recruit athletes and therefore struggling to put-out representative teams at all ages. This is not the case at York and long may that continue.
Best wishes and hopefully see you all at the National Finals in Manchester.
Craig Pounder
On Saturday in the final meeting of the league season, the Senior league team came 2nd on the day by just 8 points to City of Sheffield and Dearne. However, because the club had won the first 3 meetings earlier in the season, the club comfortably qualified for the Northern Region final that is being held at Doncaster at the end of the month.
In the Commonwealth Games Scott Lincoln achieved a wonderful bronze medal in the shot putt. Scott threw 20.57m in the Shot Putt to finish behind a couple of New Zealanders.
Off Track Distance Races
Steve Wright (40.02) and Allan Scott (40.10) narrowly failed to break 40 minutes in the popular York 10k race that took place yesterday. Angharad Pryce (44.19), James Richardson (46.56) and Anna Cuthbertson (52.24) also ran.
Dave Lancaster was the 2nd Vet 65 in the Darlington 10k that also took place on Sunday in a time of 41.25.
The club only had 13 members doing parkrun this weekend due to all the other events that were taking place. The Keens had a family double at Easingwold as William (17.30) and Kaitlin (21.22) both achieved 1st places. Sophie Robertson-Dover came 1st at Heslington in 20.51 with Ed Mezzetti coming 2nd at the same parkrun in 18.34.
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