Just two weeks after the start of the New Year, the Midland Counties held its first Open Meeting of 2011 at the Alexander Stadium, Birmingham. Harriers took a young squad to compete at the High Performance Centre indoors and throwing events outdoors. Being so early in the year, Seasons bests were guaranteed but there were also Personal Bests achieved.
In the 60m sprints, there was a strong performance for Niamh Bailey who ran 8.09 coming a very close second in the U17 Womens race to Lucy Hatton from Corby. This time was second best on the day and marked a 0.6 second improvement on Niamh’s former PB.
In the U20 Men, there was also 2 PBs for Yannick Phippen running on behalf of Birchfield Harriers at their home centre. Yannick won his first race in a time of 7.31 seconds before improving this time to 7.22 seconds in the second race when finishing third in a stronger race.
In the 60m Hurdles with Bradley Fox, Lorna Milne, Niamh Bailey and Daisy Gilbert all made their competitive debuts. All 4 ran two races with Bradley running 10.37s, Lorna 11.2s, Niamh 10.08 and Daisy 13.6s. An unusual highlight of the races was Niamh breaking the last hurdle in half which sadly was not captured on film. All 4 will have learnt much from the experience and look to improve on these times over the season.
In the outdoor throwing, Bradley returned to the Shot Putt after a season away to record a new PB of 8.92m coming second in the U17 competition. This was achieved despite having to leave this early in order to return to the second round of hurdles. In the U15 Girls Shot, there were 3 competitors involved with Daisy Gilbert finishing third with 7.12m ahead of Harriet Sumnall who threw 6.95m and Lorna Milne, who was competing in her first competition. Harriet was just 3cm below her PB.
In the outdoor discuss, Harriet finished third in the U15 competition with a best in the last round of 18.14m. In the Senior Men, Adam Henley threw a new PB of 16.06m.
All in all there were some promising signs that should lead to continued improvement in these events throughout 2011.