Poled Vault group receives a grant of £2,000 from the National Lottery – 2014 Communities fund

Kilmarnock Harriers has been successful in our application for a grant of £2,000 from the National Lottery – 2014 Communities fund.

Our application was submitted to support the development of our pole vault training group and the purchase of several poles of various weights to provide more suitable training for athletes of different age and size.

Coach Harald Bartl would like to thank the committee for their hard work in securing this grant, which has already made a huge difference for our young vaulters. This has been a very successful year as Kilmarnock Harriers being represented on the podium at National Championships. Evie Bartl winning silver U16 indoors, silver U15 outdoors and gold at the Scottish Schools with a new PB of 2.40m. Finlay Walker was this year’s U14 National Champion with a height of 2.10 and Callum Meldrum wining bronze U15 in 2.80m. Our vaulters were also successful at regional level and at Pitreavie’s Young Athlete Trophy meeting winning a total of 3 trophies. More importantly Kilmarnock is now equipped to give our very young athletes a chance to learn the pole vaulting as the purchase of lighter and smaller poles should make a big difference for their development.

In addition monies have been provided to support establishing and developing the disability section within the Club. This is the second grant we have been awarded by the National Lottery following previous success in 2012. We have also recently been awarded £1,000 by the East Ayrshire Sports Council to support the extensive level of coach education and development that is underway at present as we look to train and develop qualified coaches for our growing club.