District Champs review

Monday 16th May 2016

Photo by Bobby Gavin

Hundreds of athletes enjoyed the District Championship experience as decent conditions helped ensure good competition at three venues.

The East and West are now well-versed in the Friday evening/Saturday timetable and, for the first time, the North staged athletics on a Friday night in order to ease the programme and help make it easier clubs coming longer distances the following day.

As always, our scottishathletics officials were out in force at Kilmarnock, Grangemouth and Inverness and their tireless dedication, allied to support from a number of volunteers and venue staff, helped these events take place.

Now National Champs start to take centre stage on the scottishathletics event programme for 2016 and we are appealing again for clubs and coaches to support these fixtures.

And we’ve opened up online entries for those including the Scottish Seniors and Para Champs/U17s taking place on August 13/14 at Grangemouth – and the Age Group Champs (U20, U15, U13) the following weekend at the same venue.

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Photo by Steve Adam

East District video footage by John Elliott

Sprinters were to very much to the fore at the East Districts at Grangemouth.

Cameron Tindle, selected for Scotland for the Loughborough International, won the 200m and 100m U20 double in 21,44 and 10.69 – with a Championship best in there for the longer distance.

And Alisha Rees (pictured above, right) came up with a new 200m PB of 24.01 to get inside the qualifying standard for the European Youths in Georgia this summer (24.30).

There were events wins at Senior level also for the likes of Stephen Dunlop, Sarah Warnock and Ben Greenwood, also all selected for Loughborough, Declan Brennan, Ben Potrykus, Stacey Downie, Gemma Cormack, Lauren Stoddart, Jordan Charters, Michelle Durbridge among others.

Results are available online on Events section

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Photo by Bobby Gavin

The Ayrshire Athletics Arena in Kilmarnock once provided the right backdrop for the West Districts.

High jumper Nikki Manson, picked for Scotland for the Loughborough International, came up with one of the best performances as she cleared a new PB of 1.81m – and went close to the Championship record held by Lee McConnell (1.82m)

Rachel Hunter made a welcome return to the hammer following shoulder surgery and won the Seniors gold with 58.78m – with the VP-Glasgow athlete another looking forward to international competition this weekend at Loughborough.

Michael Wright (pictured above) won a combined East-West 3000m steeplechase staged at Kilmarnock and some of the other West Senior champions were Callum Matthews, Steven Beattie, Anthony Young, Callum Drummond, David Smith, Sam O’Kane, Chloe Lambert, Phillipa Millage, Aileen Rennie among others.

Results from the Wests are available online on Events section

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Photo by Phil Downie

Results All Competitors North Saturday

Results Friday North

Dionne Milne of Moray Roadrunners was one of nine record breakers at the weekend’s North District Championships at Queens Park, Inverness, when she threw the discus 43.25m to add over 3 metres to the 12 year old U20 best performance of Glasgow 2014 finalist Kirsty Law.

The Scottish champion herself was not present to contend for another senior title since she is currently approaching the end of a three-month period of training and competition in the United States.

Island athletes, who made up 40 percent of the total entry of over 300, made a big impact.

The other senior record was in the men’s 800m where National silver medallist Stephen MacKay of Inverness Harriers clocked 1:53.09 at the end of a solo run.

His Inverness clubmate Ali Beaton landed his 20th North District sprint title on Friday evening with the men’s 200m in 23.62 sec. However on Saturday he just failed to “come of age” when he was denied a 21st in the 100m by Inverness’s Adam Hobson (11.74 sec).

Another prolific North title winner over a long period is Inverness’s Commonwealth Games high jumper Rachael MacKenzie, but a calf injury limited her to 1.64m on this occasion.

With thanks to Charles Bannerman

Tags: Age Group champs, East Districts, Grangemouth, Inverness, Kilmarnock, North Districts, Scottish Senior and Para Champs, West Districts