The U15 and U17 girls from the sprint squad competed in the Club Connect Relays at the IAAF Diamond League Meeting in Birmingham on Saturday. Both teams only found out on Tuesday evening that they had been selected to run at the event so only had a limited amount of time to prepare for the event.
The U17 women were only ranked 98th in the UK rankings at the start of the day, and were the slowest and lowest ranked out of the the other 5 teams in their race. They were up for the challenge though, and put in an outstanding run to finish 2nd in their race, lowering their club record that they had set in June from 51.9 seconds to 50.10 seconds. They are now ranked 42nd in the UK. The team members were Erin Healy, Berny Kwei-Tagoe, Alex Beale, and Cynthia Ike.
U17 & U15 Sprint squad with GB international sprinter Harry Aikines-Aryeetey
The U15 girls faced a tougher challenge as they had never ran as a team before, but were all excited to be selected to compete and determined to do their best to represent the Harriers at such an high profile meeting. They were competing against 6 other teams including eventual winners, Preston Harriers, who are ranked 22nd in the UK. The team were Scarlett Maxwell-Munn, Jasmine Anderson, Sonal Rathod, and Georgia Coker-Agar. They finished 7th in their race in a time of 56.62 seconds.
When their races were over, the girls were able to watch the rest of the Diamond League Meeting that included Dina Asher-Smith and Zarnel Hughes in their first races since becoming European Champions. They were also able to have their photos taken with other international athletes.
Well done to all of the athletes that competed for their amazing runs on the day!