Great turnouts for our QuadKids competitions – and a new club record!
The club’s third and final set of QuadKids* competitions for this season, held at our Sandy track on the evenings of Tuesday September 16 and Thursday September 18, saw great turnouts on both days.
Helped by some kind weather, 21 young athletes from BAC’s Little Bees (U-11s) group took part on the Tuesday and 13 on the Thursday. They included four newcomers competing in their first QuadKids event − Aaron, Ben, Oscar and Kordell. Despite having only been with the club for a short time, all four achieved a fantastic set of results.
Most of the children achieved PBs (personal bests) in some of the four events which make up QuadKids so congratulations to them all. Particularly notable performances over the two evenings included:
● Nathan Cornwall beating his own club record for the U-11B 600m run with a new record time of 1:53.0.
● Leo Forster improving his PB in the howler throw by an amazing 8.45m.
● Leo Spence equalling the club record for the U-11B 75m sprint of 11.0, set in 2013, with a 0.3 second improvement on his previous PB.
● James Goodwin achieving a new PB in the 75m with a 0.7 second improvement.
● Meredith Holland-Morris improving her long jump PB by an excellent 58cm.
● Athena knocking 19 seconds off her previous PB for the 600m.
It was also great to see two former Little Bees athletes stepping up to help the current group by doing some pace-making for the 600m races. Austin Milner, who earlier this month set a new U-15B club record for the mile, did a superb job setting the pace for Nathan’s successful 600m record attempt on the Tuesday and Lewis Evans, now an U-13, did an equally great job as pace-maker in that event on the Thursday.
“Many thanks to both Austin and Lewis. It’s great to see previous members of our Little Bees group volunteer to help out in that way − and great for our current members to have them to look up to as role models,” commented Louise Cant, BAC’s coach for fundamentals who works with the youngest athletes.
As always with our events, the September QuadKids would not have been possible without our amazing officials so huge thanks go to Carol, Hannah and David Brunning for giving up their evenings to set things up and fulfil field event officiating and head timekeeper duties.
Also, many thanks to our starter, Terry. He’s very popular with the children and it’s great for them to get used to an official starter and race protocol on the track at a young age. Terry is helping BAC coach Darren through his starter training so it was nice to see him start a few races as well. Terry also helped us out with the field events.
Many thanks, too, to the parents who stepped up to help out with the track and field events − it's really appreciated by all of us at the club. If anyone enjoyed helping out and would like to do so again at any of our other events, that assistance would be very gratefully received. Please speak to any of our coaches about that. These type of events can only run with help from our wonderful volunteers.
Summing up the September QuadKids competitions, Louise commented: “A huge well done and thank you to all the children who took part − everyone seemed to have a great time. We look forward to QuadKids returning next spring.”
* QuadKids is a competition for U-11s encompassing four events − the 75m sprint, 600m run, long jump and vortex howler (throwing implement). It is designed to be a first step for young athletes in the world of competitive athletics.
RESULTS September 16: https://share.google/bGLXnMZqMfRXpdZjt
RESULTS September 18: https://share.google/TBsXGpS4qk506dIws