Scottish National Indoor Senior & Under 17 Championships

A number of fine performances were recorded at the Scottish National Indoor Senior and Under 17 Championships by the Harriers this past Saturday with 8 athletes representing the club across 9 events.

In the sprints, five athletes represented Kilmarnock, with the 60m runners starting the day off very well. Firstly, we had Scott Young competing in the senior men’s heats. After a powerful start, Scott came away with fourth place in his heat with a time of 7.39secs which qualified him for the next round. Next up was Lauren Greig the Kilmarnock sprinter competing in the colours of Glasgow School of Sport in the U17 women’s race. She cruised through her heat to win in a time of 8.04secs, advancing to the next round. Lastly we had Joe Aiwansoba who beat his previous personal best (PB) by three tenths of a second in the heats of the U17 men’s 60m. While sadly his new PB time of 7.74secs was just not enough to qualify him for the next round of the competition, he could take confidence from his greatly improved start and acceleration.

Quickly after the 60m heats, the circular track events began to start with Michael Bargh and Sam Kennedy both competing for the club in the U17 men’s 400m heats. Despite three heats being scheduled, both athletes found themselves in the first heat together and were able to walk away content with Michael winning the heat in 55.42secs and Sam coming fourth in a new PB of 59.37secs which over half a second off his previous personal best.

Next came the semi-finals of the 60m on the straight track with Scott Young and Lauren Greig both running well. Scott went first in the very competitive senior men’s event (the highest quality field for a number of years) and walked away from his heat with a promising time of 7.29secs in sixth place, narrowly missing out on fifth by 0.01secs. This performance for Scott puts him in good stead for the upcoming Scottish Universities and Collages Championship. Straight after this, Lauren took to the track running 7.90secs, the fastest time in the U17 women’s semi-finals and 0.01secs off her PB at this point.

Just after midday, the first of our two senior middle distance runners took to the track with Robert Lindsay running in the senior men’s 800m. Robert was in the third and fastest heat, and after some good pacing and a strong final kick ran a time of 2:09.55 which was a great 3 second improvement on his time from the Scottish Indoor Open two weeks prior.

Quickly soon after, Lauren Greig then took our attention back to the straight track as she prepared to run in the final of the U17 women’s 60m. After two strong performances already today she went in as the fastest qualifier. With confidence in herself Lauren executed a superb run, and successfully took the gold with quite a winning margin becoming the 2017 U17 women’s 60m Scottish Champion, bettering the silver medal she won last year in her first year of the age group. In doing so, she also managed to smash her PB of 7.90secs, bringing it down to 7.83secs comfortably moving up the 2017 rankings and is currently in UK top 20 for the event.

While the inner track programme now took a break for lunch, the stadiums attention went to the heats of the 200m. Two Kilmarnock athletes competed in the event for the U17’s with Lauren Greig going first less than an hour after her 60m victory. Easing through the heat she won in 26.27secs comfortably moving her through to the next round before passing the spot light to Joe Aiwansoba in the U17 men’s event. Joe ran impressively finishing his day with a PB of 25.29secs and is getting ever closer to his target of breaking the 25 second barrier.

Turning the crowd’s attention back to the inner track, the majority of field events started after lunch with Kilmarnock’s sole representative in them being Finlay Walker in the U17 pole vault. With a field of six athletes, two rose above the rest of the field exceeding 3.5m and Finlay with an impressive final height of 3.71m was one of them. Taking the silver medal, Finlay beat his previous PB from the Indoor National Open by 0.04cm and can look forward to future successes in competitions at the U17 age group since it is only his first year.

As the afternoon turned into evening, Michael Bargh returned to participate in the U17 men’s 400m final. Michael has only recently switched clubs to Kilmarnock and Saturday’s event was his first national competition in the Kilmarnock vest. Having had an impressive 2016 season, his first championship of 2017 didn’t disappoint. The 400m final for the juniors was a tough one. A gold medal was fought for between Michael and another athlete in a gruelling second lap of the 200m track finishing in a dead heat. However earlier in the race the other athlete had left his lane too early before the break point. Michael became the 2017 U17 Scottish men’s indoor 60m champion in 51.37secs, a huge PB by 0.6secs in his first competition of the season.

The 200m semi-finals followed soon thereafter with Lauren Greig continuing her very successful day, and winning her race with a faster performance of 25.38secs ensuring her place in the finals which were to end the night. The second of our senior distance duo then took to the track with Stephanie Hewitt competing in the senior women’s 1500m. She finished eighth with a nice season opener of 5:13.05 in a field, which had a very difficult and varied pace over the demanding seven and a half laps in the dry air of the Emirates Arena.

The final event of the night for our athletes involved Lauren competing for a second medal of day in the U17 women’s 200m final. With aspirations to compete at this year’s Commonwealth Youth Games in the Bahamas and a high quality field of athletes in the final, she took her opportunity to have an attempt at running the qualification time of 24.90secs. Straight from the gun the field was split in half with the outer three lanes including Lauren pulling away from the rest of the field together. As they progressed down the back straight and into the second bend, positions between the three athletes kept changing and as they progressed through the bend and the stagger unwound, it unveiled the three athletes almost level with one another down the home straight. Positions continued to switch right up to the line with Lauren being just out-dipped by the other two athletes. She won the bronze; her second medal of the day, however the real victory for her was when her time was revealed as 24.89secs (a massive PB) allowing her to leave with the knowledge that she has made the qualification time for the CYG so early in the season. In reflection, Saturday was a good day for all athletes competing both senior and junior. The Scottish Indoor Championship has provided a hugely positive indication for the outdoor season to come and good luck to all the above athletes in their future events both indoors, outdoors and beyond.

Report compiled by Cameron Wilson