“Rising Stars” and ANI Junior XC squad competitions
Fri 6 May 2011--admin
Throughout the season many young City of Lisburn athletes have participated in the Athletics NI “Rising Stars” programme. Eligibility for the squad was by achievement of certain standards in their events last year. The eight squad sessions gave these talented young athletes access to coaching covering the sprints, endurance, jumps and throws and concluded with a competition at the MPT last Saturday.
33 girls were present and Lisburn’s Kathryn Case was ranked an excellent 4th overall after tests in the four areas. She had particularly strong performances in shot(2nd) and long jump (3rd), although the less said about her 800m, the better!!! Solid performances across all the events saw Caitlin Rose finish 8th best girl overall while Natalja Ritchie won a prize for the best shot putt of the day with a super 7.52m. Natalja’s all-round performance saw her finish 10th overall and there were good performances from Cara Burke, Annie Alexander, Lauren Gourley and Kirsten Evans who threw the shot to her usual high standard. Katie Larmour didn’t complete the four events but produced one of the better long jumps on the day with 4.09m.
From a similar number of boys Kadhum Hassan was the top Lisburn boy in a great 2nd place overall. Highlights included 3rd in the sprint, 3rd in the long jump with a 5.26m PB and a surprise win in the shot with 9.73m. Ben Fisher improved his long jump PB to 4.63m.
Alongside this the Athletics NI Junior (Under 11) cross-country squad had their end of season event. Kate Gourley continued her dominance at this level to win the 1km race in a speedy 3:36. Olivia Neill ran well for 8th while brother Matthew took 4th place in the boys’ race.
Congratulations to all those who participated so successfully in these events.