New track and field season begins for Stratford athletes

THE track and field season has started in earnest and five Stratford AC juniors started with the Rugby & Northampton AC Open. U13 Tom Weaver threw 31.53m in the javelin to record a new PB before throwing 6.6m in the shot put.

Seb Hillard has moved up to the U13s and jumped a PB of 4.19m in the long jump and then ran a promising debut in the 800m, clocking 2:48.0.

Seb’s sister Niamh ran a PB in the U13 1,500m in a time of 5:31.1 and she was joined by two of the club’s triathletes in U15 Charlotte Marshall who ran 5:25.2 and Molly Bullock in 5:48.1.

Another debutant on the track was triathlete Martha Bullock who ran 2:15.8 in the U11 600m.

Despite limited training due to preparing and going on to win titles in the UK Skipping Championships, U17 Evie Lowe competed in the high jump, finishing with 1.45m.

Four U20 athletes travelled to Loughborough and in his first year as an U17 Lewis Byng has started where he left off outdoors last year by going straight to the top of the UK rankings with a mighty heave of 18.35m in the shot put to claim a new PB.

Byng said afterwards: “Training is going well and I know there’s more to come.”

With the U20 European Championships as his main objective this year, that distance also puts Byng fourth in Europe and seventh on the all-time UK rankings.

Imogen Sheppard established a new outdoor PB in the 400m of 58.97s and she was followed home by sister Jess in a time of 59.73s who also ran 26.70s in the 200m.

Harry Allwood is a 400m specialist, but to get some speed training in he ran in the shorter 100m (12.66s PB) and the 200m (25.09s).

Meanwhile, at Stourport, Daisy Musk was coming off a good cross country season and started her track races with a 600m run and after a fast first lap of 63 seconds, she went on to finish third with a three-second PB of 1:42.0.