Fun in the sun at Grangemouth

Monday 2nd June 2014

Scotland Select feature in Unis international match

The race for Commonwealth Games standards understandably dominates the agenda with Team Scotland qualifying into the final week.

But there may well have been more than a few athletes and coaches thinking about Gold Coast 2018 on Saturday at Grangemouth – rather than Glasgow 2014.

A very young Scotland Select team took part in the Universities International match between Scottish students and Irish students and added an extra feature to the event.

In the end, the Scotland Select won by four points in the overall match from the Irish Unis but far more important was a series of fine individual performances, including a handful by teenagers.

Grant Plenderleith came up with another 400m PB as he looks towards relay selection for Hampden while there were impressive PBs in the jumps from Taylor Nimmo, over 7m for the first time, and Joseph Amouzou, with 14.20 for triple jump.

Rachel Robertson also PBd in the women’s triple jump with 11.75. Cameron Tindle’s 21.72 was the third best at U17 level for 200m with Ciaran Wright’s 58.08 hammer throw the third best U20 of all-time.

Scotland Select captains for the day, Jack Lawrie and Anna Gordon, were both event winners in 400m hurdles and pole vault respectively. Lawrie’s 52.6 is the sixth best U20 all-time and takes him to second in the British rankings.

‘I enjoyed it and you are always looking for a PB,’ said Jack. ‘I’m heading to the England Athletics U20s on June 21/22 and will see how that goes. You can’t rely on the rankings, you have to compete on the day but hopefully this is another good sign.’

Gordon, who cleared 3.70m, said: ‘I’ve never had any kind of captaincy honour before in athletics in terms of Scotland so it was nice to be asked. I attempted 3.80m which is the Scottish U20 record and I will keep aiming for that.’

For the Scottish Unis, Mhairi Maclennan came up with a fine PB in the 3000m with 10.02.69. In the Unis match itself, the Scottish women did well to win but the overall verdict went in favour of the visitors.

There are plans now to add Welsh Universities to the competition. Organiser Ian Tatton of SUCA said: ‘A big thank you to all involved with the University International at Grangemouth on Saturday.

‘It was a wonderful day’s competition held in near-perfect conditions with all wind speeds being within the legal limits.

‘There were some excellent performances by a number of athletes. In the University match, the Irish won overall however the SUCA women’s team again returned in an amazing performance to conquer the Irish.

‘I would like to also thank the officials for their continued support of SUCA events and for their open and friendly approach as well as professional attitude – this was highlighted by the Irish Team at the after-dinner speeches.

‘Next year we hope to entice Wales to join our family and make it a truly Celtic University International.’

scottishathletics would echo those sentiments and add our thanks to Ian himself for his tireless work to help University and Colleges athletics in Scotland.

All the results from Grangemouth are here: https://sa.uniondigital.uk/calendar/events/16992-16220-suca-celtic-international

Tags: Commonwealth Games, Grangemouth, Grant Plenderleith, Scottish Unis