The club has had a very busy week with action taking place in both track and field and road racing.
Track and Field
Northern Under 17 & Under 15 Inter Counties – Saturday 27th May
The Northern Inter-Counties match took place at a sun-drenched University of York track on Saturday. The track was packed with athletes, parents, coaches, officials and supporters who created a brilliant atmosphere and a fantastic day of athletics for all involved.
The competition was contested by 10 County regions in the North of England: Cheshire, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Greater Manchester, Humber AA, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Merseyside, North-East, and Yorkshire.
The U15 and U17 teams were selected based on athletes’ performances at their own County Championships 2 weeks ago. City of York AC had 16 athletes taking part – 13 representing Yorkshire and 3 representing Humber AA:
Yorkshire: Zack Cumberland – Hurdles, Cole McAndrew – 800m, Bryce Farmer-Beasley – Shot and Discus, Daniel Cluderay – Long Jump, Louisa Birch – Medley Relay, Lottie Langan – 800m and Medley Relay, Isabel Dalton – Long Jump, Esme Pounder – Hurdles and High Jump, Annabel Fulford – High Jump, Tabby Speight – Long Jump, Kathryn Clague – Shot and Discus, Talia Northcott – Hurdles and Carys Francis – Hurdles and Shot.
Humberside: Sophie Robertson-Dover – 800m, Isobel Holland – Long Jump and Alice Gilday – Hurdles.
Yorkshire won the U15 Boys, U15 Girls, U17 Men and U17 Women categories to retain the overall Inter-Counties trophy.
Congratulations to all those athletes taking part and gaining their county vests.
YDL Upper 2nd Round Meeting – Sunday May 28th
For the second time in two days York hosted a big Youth athletics competition. It is important to begin this report by thanking all the volunteers behind the scenes at our club who make it such a well-organised and welcoming venue. We are very lucky to have a great facility, but it is the volunteers who make it the thriving club that it is today. So, thank you to everyone whether you made the officials lunches, took photographs, set-out the equipment, dug the sandpits, moved the hurdles, made the hot drinks, compiled the results and countless other jobs which go on throughout the day and enable our young people to compete and excel. It is also important to recognise the contribution of the club coaches who work with the athletes every week and help them on their path to becoming better athletes and even better young people. As team manager, I just slot their names onto the teamsheet but the work that goes on behind the scenes to get these young people physically and mentally ready to compete is wonderful to see.
Once again, our young athletes did excel, scoring 966 points and winning this YDL Upper fixture by over 350 points. We are now sitting very comfortably at the top of the league and barring a disaster (we just need to finish in the top 3 in the third match), we will contest the YDL Upper Finals to be held at Manchester Regional Arena on Sunday September 3rd. Please keep this date clear in your diaries!
There were too many good performances to start picking out individuals but there were over 53 personal bests recorded throughout the day for CoYAC athletes and I’m sure a huge number of our athletes will be rightly proud of themselves for their achievements. Some competed for the first time, some have edged closer to English Schools qualification, but all deserve the utmost praise for the way they act and compete at every match.
The next fixture is away at Doncaster on Sunday 25th June. This date clashes with the regional round of the English Schools Combined Events so expect more team changes and places up for grabs. Also, to reiterate my previous message – some events are over-subscribed with many athletes up for the same few places. However, things like steeplechase, long hurdles, pole vault and female distance events are consistently struggling for athletes. Our success in the National Finals will depend on filling our team-sheet so the next YDL match at Doncaster might be the opportunity to try something new/different. 😊
England Athletics Senior and Under 20 Combined Events Championships
In a sunny but breezy Manchester Regional Arena, the England U20/Senior Combined Events Competition took place on Saturday and Sunday, 27th and 28th May. Frances Hogg, Isaac Henson and William Reid all took part with coach Sam Stanislaus in attendance.
Fran was under the weather and battling against a recurring knee injury but she took the positives from the weekend – a big shot PB and an outdoor 800m PB to finish 8th in the U20 heptathlon in her first year in this age category. Isaac has work to do on his track events but he equalled his pole vault PB, gained a new PB in the long jump and threw the furthest javelin throw of any competitor in the field to finish 13th. Will was disqualified on day one but reinstated on day 2! He had big PB’s in the 100m and 400m, was solid across the board in the field events and finished in 4th place with a 500-point decathlon PB.
All three had a great weekend and will have learnt a lot that will help them build towards the English Schools combined events first round at Cleckheaton in 4-weeks time.
Other competitions
Katy Wood broke her 2nd club record in a week as she ran 16.13.67 for the 5000m at the BMC meeting in Manchester on Saturday. Tommy Shaw also broke the club under 20 1500m record as he ran 3.49.43 at the same meeting. Alex Botterill ran 1.47.58 for the 800m with James Tucker running 3.55.70 for the 1500m.
Scott Lincoln competed on Wednesday at the Centro Sportivo Fantanassa in Savona, Italy and came 3rd with a throw of 20.50m
On Thursday Lucy Hadaway won the Cyprus international meeting in Limassol with a jump of 6.73m. This was also a stadium record.
Cleethorpes Open
A group went to the Cleethorpes Open and had a very successful day with a lot of medals and good performances.
Seb Ward led the honours with wins in the 100m, long jump (4.68) and shot (7.26), with recent starter Felix Michell doing well to finish 3rd in the 100 in his first run away from York.
As often, the girls dominated the hurdles, with Talia Northcott and Alice Gilday the first 2 in the Under 15, and Sophia Horsfall-Samb and Juliette Macquin-Jones the first 2 in the Under 13 – all in very good times. In the U15 sprints, Talia, Alice, Evelyn Coulson filled the first 3 in the 100m, and Alice & Evelyn were first 2 in the 200 with Emma Hutton 4th. For the Under 13s, Juliette Macquin-Jones and Juliette Callau were 2nd and 3rd in the 100m.
The field medal charge was led by Juliette C and Sophia who shared the U13 high jump with a very good 1.43m. Carys Francis won the long jump with a big pb of 4.65m, and was 2nd in the shot.
Some good longer running saw Nina Hopkins 2nd in the 300m (44.97 taking 2 seconds off her pb), and 2nd in the 800, while Isla Watson had a big improve to win her 300 heat and be 4th overall. Isobel Madden was 3rd in the 800 with a pb of 2m 25.28. Credit to Carys and Sophie Williams who took on the 800m as part of their pentathlon training.
So a daily total of 10 gold, 9 silver, 5 bronze so far. Added to with Juliette C, Juliette M-J, Sophia finding a new friend from Hallamshire to win the Under 13 Relay by a huge distance.
Road Running
After the thunder storm in the last race in the series at Pocklington, the weather gods again had fun with the runners in the York 10k Road Race League as this time unseasonably warm weather greeted runners for the undulating course at Easingwold. James Wiesby led the club home in 14th place with 36.14 with Allan Scott (39.35), Mike Raynes (40.02), Dave Lancaster (42.29), Tim Pattison (42.55) and Andy Richardson (43.09) making up the team that came 7th. In the women’s race Chrissie Dover came 8th overall and 4th vet 35 with Karen Wood comfortably being the 1st vet 55 with 45.40. In other veteran classifications Dave Lancaster was the 2nd vet 60.
Last weekend, James Bastow and Hannah Lovett did very well finishing 3rd male and 2nd female in the 12-15 years category in the 2.5 mile Hawksworth Dash at Baildon at the weekend! It was a brutal climb reported to us!
17 runners from the club did parkrun over the weekend. There were 2nd places for William Keens at Easingwold (18.06) and Juliet Horne at Selby (21.20) with 3rd places for Chrissie Dover at Heslington (19.56) and Julie Mastrolonardo at Dalby (21.01). Leo Forsdyke (7.29) and Emily Rycroft (7.34) were the first two runners across the line in the York Junior parkrun.