Well done to our Award Winners!

The Harriers Christmas Party at Bamford Bowling Club was a night to celebrate a great year for our juniors, with a major expansion in members and many achievements across all types of event and age group. The club has gone from strength to strength through the year and is now a developing force to be reckoned with in the Sportshall league, cross country circuit and track & field meetings.

This progress was recognised at the party when club captain David Proctor presented four awards that recognised all that is good about the club. For the first time we gave 'Spirit of Athletics' awards to two athletes who, in the collective opinion of the coaching team, had shown a consistently good level of attendance, conduct, commitment and positive attitude throughout the year. The very popular and deserving winners of these awards were Beth Greenwood and James Kramer.

Our second set of awards recognised the high standards of performance our athletes have been setting through the year with Tom Kramer and Charlotte Bowker receiving AAA Grade certificates for their efforts in the long jump (Grade 2) and 200m (Grade 4) respectively.

We intend to build on the success of these awards by expanding the range for next year, watch out for further information. In the meantime our winners for 2009 are shown above with David and their awards.

Stars all round at Sports Hall Round 2!!

Another big squad of junior Harriers took part in round 2 of the Greater Manchester Sportshall League at Sportcity last Sunday. The results are in and we are in with a chance of team trophies in three of the age groups as we go into the last round next month.

Starting with the boys groups, our under 11 boys all performed well and lie 5th of 12 teams after two rounds. On the day, Dante Dawes again ran well in the 1 lap, finishing 3rd in the final, before also finishing 2nd in the V jump. Good individual points were also earned by Jack and Charlie Nicholson and by Daniel Moore. Collectively, the boys finished a good 4th in the obstacle relay.

Our under 13 boys had a very good day and are now lying in 2nd place. There were good contributions all round, particularly in the field events, where Louis Robinson excelled in the shot putt and standing triple jump, and a very good team effort for 2nd and 10 points in the 4x2 relay. Leiws Thirsk won the V jump while Luke Flanagan picked up good points in the V jump and standing long jump.

The under 15 boys carried on the good work from round 1 and go into the last round in clear 2nd place. Our boys farmed the points on the track with 1-2s for Jack Walsh and Sam Ullah in the 4 lap, Jack and Ben Johnson in the lap and a 2nd & 3rd for Tom Kramer and Ben in the 2 lap. a solid set of placed finishes in the field with good contributions from Liam Moore, Ben, Tom and Sam helped to boost the points total further to give us a realistic chance of winning this category next time.

Over to the girls now and our under 11s again showed lots of promise, with Ellen Chrimes coming 2nd in the V jump and being 1st B athlete in the standing long jump. Beth Farrington picked up place points in the V jump, as did Niamh Nugent and Rhiannon Whitworth in the speed bounce. The girls then worked well together to end up 2nd in the obstacle relay.

In the under 13 girls, Lucy Moore ran well to finish 5th in the 6 lap, while Megan Knox and Fern Robinson scored good points in the speed bounce. The girls then got together and ran a very creditable 5th in the 4x2 lap relay.

Our strong under 15 girls squad built on their first round efforts and scored points consistently across the range of events. 'Spirit of Athletics' award winner Beth Greenwood took confidence from her achievements with a PB in the standing triple jump, while Sophie Thirsk and Naomi Richardson were a formidable double act in the speed bounce with scores of 86 and 79 bringing in a total of 11 points. Charlotte Bowker came 3rd in the V jump and 4th in the standing triple jump before showing that she could vary her tactics effectively with another confident win in the 6 lap, her 6th in a row in that event. Becky Moore also picked up vital points for the team in the shot and V jump. The highlight of the afternoon was saved to last when Naomi Richardson teamed up with Charlotte Bowker to devastating effect in the 8 lap parlauf, the two girls showing great pace and team work to comprehensively beat teams from Trafford, Sale, Wigan and Bolton. The girls go into round 3 a close 2nd in what is a very competitive age group.

Well done again to all our athletes and thanks to their parents and relatives for supporting them so well, it means a lot to the athletes to know you're behind them and really spurs them on!

Great start to Sale Open Indoor Season

Four of our Junior Harriers were in action at the first of the Sale Open Indoor meetings of the winter season at Sportcity today. There were some excellent performances to build on over the next five meetings. Charlotte Bowker kicked the day's action off with a very promising 4th in her competitive 60m hurdles debut in a time of 10.78. She then joined Jenny Sherwin in the flat 60m heats and both ran very well, finishing 2nd and 3rd in PB times of 8.75 and 8.93 respectively. Meanwhile, Tom Kramer was moving up to the U17 men's category for the first time and found it no problem in the long jump, winning the Pool B competition with a lifetime second best jump of 5.47. He went on to run a highly promising 3rd in 42.4 secs in the 300 in his first attempt at the distance and finished off with a very good 2nd in the afternoon 60m heats.

Jenny and Charlotte spent the afternoon session in the shot putt where they were joined by Beth Halliday. All threw well, with Charlotte recording a PB of 6.68, Beth being close to her PB with a best of 5.96 and Jenny finishing with a very good 5.65 in her first open comp since the summer.

Well done to all, the next Sale Open event is on Sunday 20th December

REMINDER - SALE OPEN INDOOR COMPS START SUNDAY!

Just to remind all our athletes in the Under 15s upwards that the first of the Sale Open Indoor Meetings is on Sunday 6th December at Sportcity, 10.30am start. For those who've not done one before they are great experience of competing on the full indoor straight and banked-bend tracks, and in a range of field events including long jump, high jump and shot. You can enter on the day at £5 per event but get there for 10.00am at least if you intend to do so. If you want to see the event schedule Ian has all the details, catch him at Tuesday's training session. If you can't make this Sunday's event, Ian will give you all the future dates so you can put them in your diary.

For an athlete's view of what it's like, ask Tom K, Charlotte or Jack, all of whom competed throughout last winter and did very well.

Great start to new Sports Hall season

Our biggest ever squad of junior Harriers got off to a great start in the first of the Greater Manchester Sportshall League matches at Sportcity. A 30-strong group were highly competitive across all the age groups and some excellent individual performances were backed up by some great team efforts in the relays. It was great to see so many of our newer athletes enjoying a first taste of competitive action and to see all our team being backed by such enthusiastic support from their parents and friends.

We will be able to see our position in the league table once we get the finalised results later this week, in the meantime well done on behalf of the coaching team to all our athletes. Let's see if we can build on this success in the next match on the 13th December!

Sale Open Indoor dates released

Those athletes in the Under 15s age group and above may be interested in the dates of this winter's schedule of indoor meetings orgainsed by Sale Harriers at Sportcity. These very popular events are run on Sundays, starting at 11.00am and usually finishing about 4.30pm. Last year, Tom Kramer, Charlotte Bowker, Beth Halliday, Scott Greenwood and Jack Walsh all took part on various days and enjoyed the experience of high quality competition using the full indoor track and field facilities.

An entry form will shortly be available to download and send off from the Sale Harriers website. In the meantime, the dates are: Sundays 6th December, 20th December, 3rd January, 10th January, 21st February and 7th March.

For our younger athletes, the popular Young Athletes indoor meeting, which caters for athletes in the U 9 to U15 ages will be on Saturday 3rd April, detauls to follow nearer the time.

If you need any more information or advice about any of these events see Ian at training

Track season ends with more successes

Junior Harriers brought the curtain down on the 2009 outdoor track and field season with some fine efforts in the last two open meetings at Wigan and Blackpool.

Last Saturday at Wigan, Tom Kramer was back in winning form in the long jump, his best of 5.14 being good enough for gold. That effort followed a very good 100m time of 12.9 for 4th place and an excellent PB of 8.58 in the shot. Tom was joined by a number of our newer juniors, all of whom acquited themselves well. Ellen Chrimes put in good debut efforts of 17.0 in the 100m and 4.62 in the shot, while Sam Ullah had a best of 18.35 for 5th in the discus, 3.89 in the long jump and a highly respectable 2.33 in the 800m.

On a decent day for athletics this Sunday at Stanley Park, we saw more good performances in the final Blackpool Wyre & Fylde open of the year. Charlotte Bowker was in fine form in the sprints, lowering her 100m PB again to 13.8 for overall 8th of 25 and running her best 200m since mid July to finish overall 6th of 20 in 28.1. Younger sister Sophie got in on the act by knocking 8 secs off her PB with a time of 2.36 in the under 9s 600m for 5th place. Ben Johnson then completed a very busy weekend in style with a hard earned 800m bronze in a PB time of 2.20, a remarkable effort after a football match and a cross country the previous day!

Sam Ullah and Ellen Chrimes gained more valuable competitive experience and were joined by Sophie and Pippa Ullah who both performed very well across their events. Among the highlights were Sam's bronze in the discus with a best of 16.33 and Sophie's winning under 11 girls long jump of 3.43.

Well done to these and all our athletes who've competed on the track and in the field during what has been a highly successful outdoor season