Mission accomplished – West District Championship proves to a big success for Kilmarnock Harriers

As Donald had already indicated Kilmarnock Harriers can be proud of what they have achieved, both in organizing and supporting this event and with the numerous medals our athletes won in the wide range of track & field events. The weather has been an extra bonus and I am sure most participant embraced the glorious blue sky and sunshine despite the at times cold wind. The army of volunteers and our club members young and not so young put in a tremendous effort to get the whole thing smoothly running. A special thank you to our youngest volunteers, Leonnie and Phoebe McCutcheon, who must have run a few miles over these two days delivering completed score cards from the field/track to the back office officials for announcement and data collection …

Although the final results  are not yet available, the two days of competition provided plenty of drama and medals for our own athletes. I am sure there are plenty of positive aspects Kilmarnock Harriers can take away from this championship, the increased number of  participating athletes probably one important aspect to mention. Last year Kilmarnock Harriers had one athlete (Evie Bartl) as a sole figure competing in the field events, this time we had 7 athletes in the U14 age group alone.

 

For me personally it was with great satisfaction to see that Kilmarnock Harriers had 2 girls on the podium for the javelin competition, with Evie Bartl winning with 27.58m and Lauren Greig achieving the bronze medal throwing over 20m for the fist time.

 Another highlight and a milestone for the club  was the gold medal Cara Baillie won in the pole vault competition with a new PB of 1.87m. How long has it been that a Kilmarnock Harrier athlete won a medal in the pole vault? Putting the whole achievement into context, it’s worth reminding people that in my blog from 14th April I announced the formation of a new pole vault group, even suggesting that

“The initial signs are very promising that a Kilmarnock Harrier athlete will soon make her debut in Pole Vault in one of the upcoming competitions such as the new Youth Development League or the West District.” None of us had any experience in this event coach or athlete  and it is to great credit to the dedication of our small group who practiced very hard over the last 5-6 weeks. Congratulations also to Leigh McLevery, member of the Ayrshire Harriers team, who has been practicing with us recently. Leigh won the gold for U16 with the same height.

 There has been plenty of other excitement too, predominantly in the sprint events with plenty of medals and drama, medals decided after a photo finish. Cameron Wilson, Roy Shankland and Evie Bartl all having very close finishes, Evie missing out by 3 hundreds of a second in her 75m hurdle race.

 A full report will be published in due course once full results become available and more pictures will hopefully be published on our flickr page.