Swindon Harriers dominated the javelin and hammer throw events as they ended the first weekend of the UK YDL Midland League Premier South & West in second place.
It was a strong start to the event for Swindon in the first meeting at Newport Stadium last weekend, with multiple individual victories and the team finishing the weekend in second place overall.
The Harriers’ own UK number-one-ranked under-15 javelin athlete Lucy Bull put them in a strong position as she took home the win in both the javelin, with another throw of over 39 metres, and the discus as she threw a personal best 26.69 metres to finish with two victories.
Ellie Charlesworth also had a splendid day in the javelin as she finished first in the B event with a throw of 20.33 metres, giving the Harriers a double victory from the discipline.
They were not the only duo to lock out the A and B victories for an event, as Lottie Harding and Evie Wilkins both won in the under-15s hammer to help Swindon to a strong start to the season as a team.
Martin Smith, who is joint team manager along with Craig Scott and Gemma Scott, said: “I’m made up with that because if I’m honest I thought we were heading for third place as we had a few gaps and points went begging.
“But with the squad we had everyone performed really well, it is onwards and upwards now.”
There was plenty of other individual success in Newport as Tamiah Roswell smashed her own personal best by over half a second as she ran 10.1 seconds in the under-13s 75 metres, her previous best had been 10.71 seconds in Bracknell last month.
This time sent her joint top in the UK rankings and outright number one in the South West for the distance, on top of this she also finished as the runner-up in the B long jump event.
In his opening race of the year, sprinter Jayden Messiah came runner-up in the under-13s 150 metres in a big personal best of 19.6 seconds – previously 21.05 seconds last summer – to go top of the South West Rankings.
The team finished the first weekend of the competition in second place, behind only Cheltenham and County Harriers, narrowly edging out Cardiff AC by two points, but having a healthy gap of over 30 points to Gloucester AC in fourth place.
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