English Schools’ Athletics Association Combined Events
Last weekend saw the regional finals of the English Schools’ Athletics Association Combined Events, with 3 BRAT Junior athletes in attendance. U17 Isabelle Carruthers and U15 Robert Lee were sporting the red of West Midlands Schools, whilst U15 Evie Rendell was in the yellow of Warwickshire Schools. The competition was held at Moorways Stadium in Derby over a very warm and muggy weekend. U15’s complete a Pentathlon (80m Hurdles, Shot Put, Long Jump, High Jump and 800m) and U15 boys were up first on the Saturday. This was Robert’s first ever Pentathlon and he started strong with a 12.35s PB in the Hurdles putting him in 4th place. His Shot Put wasn’t quite a PB but still moved him up to 3rd place. This was followed by some difficult jumping where he struggled to find his form in both his Long Jump and High Jump. However, he did what was needed, getting legal…
The BRAT Juniors’ Winning Run Continues In Banbury!
Let’s set the scene. Meeting 1 in Stourport in June. The BRAT junior team delivered a crushing victory, finishing over 200 points clear of second place Banbury. Let’s not forget, we were only promoted to this division last year, so many of the existing clubs have no idea who we are and how strong our athletes are! It must have been a shock for the other teams, but with Banbury hosting this recent meeting, it was the perfect opportunity for them to put out their strongest possible team, and they did not disappoint! To complicate matters even more, this meeting unfortunately clashed with the Inter County Schools’ Championships (Mason Trophy) where we had a lot of athletes competing. In their absence, it was left to others to step up and make their performances count! What’s more…..Oxfordshire don’t compete in the Mason Trophy, so Banbury didn’t lose any athletes for this…
Mason Trophy
12 BRATs travelled to Stoke on 17th June to represent the West Midlands in the Mason Trophy. These 12 athletes covered all discipline types (sprints, hurdles, distance, throws and jumps) which goes to show the great depth of strength within the club which is a credit to the coaches as well as the athletes. The West Midlands were one of 10 counties being represented and each team could enter 2 athletes per age group per event. U17 Dylan Teasdale ran a PB of 9.34.16 in the 3000m where he finished 9th and U17 George Astbury a PB of 5.01.47 in the 1500m S/C where he finished 5th. U15 Alba Smith-Pena came 7th in her heat and 16th overall in the 1500m. U17 Nancy Foster-Jones ran in both the 100m and 200m where she was 2nd in both heats and 5th and 4th overall. U15 Kenyah Reddin also ran the 100m…
New Course Record for Nya Williams
U11 Nya Williams is going from strength to strength with her running. She took part in the Keswick Mountain Festival 5km trail run on 20th May and out of 107 competitors, Nya finished first lady overall in a time of 21:57. Unfortunately she was unable to collect the 1st prize crate of beer but she was very happy with her trophy and trail running backpack. A week later on 27th May she ran a new PB at the Brueton Parkrun in a time of 20.26 and broke the course record in the process – a record which had stood for 9 years! She also had a fantastic night at the Sphinx AC Mid Week 5 in Coventry War Memorial Park where she took part in the junior race and was overall winner. She received a trophy, medal and delicious bag of sweets and said that there was a great atmosphere…
Heart of England League – A Crushing Victory For BRAT Juniors
It’s that time of the year again. Our first BRAT junior track & field league outing…and you know what that means….an opportunity for me to put together my usual protracted write-up for the website. As always, I start with my usual caveat that I can’t mention everyone, but rest assured, I have a close eye on all of you both during the event itself and via the results. I will be chatting with all our athletes at some point, hopefully! Taking a step back from results and performances for the moment, there are a few things that underpin our (fantastic) results: Officials (timekeepers, starters, track judges, field event helpers). I’m starting with officials as it our #1 most important point. In all honestly, officials are one of our most limiting factors when it comes to developing as a club. To host our own events, we need many more. A big…
County Championships
The weekend of 13th – 14th May saw the County Championships take place and the BRAT Juniors were out in force, (despite it being the weekend before GCSE’s and A’ Levels), with 111 entries for Warwickshire and 2 for Worcestershire! Whilst the older athletes took part in individual events, the Under 11 Boys and Girls competed in a Quadrathon – a combined event comprising of a 75m sprint, long jump, howler throw and 600m race. For many of the U11 athletes this was their first competition and every single competitor gave maximum effort with lots of PBs to show for it! The boys’ event took place on the Saturday with 4 BRAT entrants across a field of 18. After some very close races and huge long jump PBs, the event finished with a fantastic first place for Elliot Jones and second place for Charlie Keenan. The girls’…
BRAT Athletes @ Junior Great Birmingham Run
A strong BRAT contingent entered the Junior Great Birmingham Run which was open to 9-15 year olds. The new 2.5km course started and finished in the Smithfield area of the city centre. Elliot Dawlatly, in excellent form of late, confidently set the pace early on and led throughout the race until tantalizingly being caught in the last few metres. He was followed by a succession of high finishing BRAT runners with Ollie Knight placing 3rd and Josh Taylor 4th. In the girls’ race Alba Smith-Pena finished 3rd in a strong field and raised over £500 for Birmingham Children’s Hospital! Other notable performances were in the 9-11 year old age categories with Anaadh Singh and Joseph Baker 2nd and 3rd respectively in the boys’ race and Orla Woodman 3rd in the girls’ race. Full results can be found here. Write-up courtesy of Andy Knight.
Astbury claims Midland Champs gold in strong BRAT juniors’ performance
Whereas the senior event in Sutton Park is a team based relay, the juniors run an individual 5k, the Midland 5k Championship. This is the best runners from across the entire midlands region competing in a championship race. Needless to say, it is a high quality event that attracts the best athletes. Several BRAT juniors took part on what is an extremely challenging course featuring some leg-sapping hills. George Astbury pulled clear in a final sprint on the hill to the finish line to capture his first major medal. A time of 16:15 gave him a 1 second victory in an extremely competitive u17s race. He also took a huge chunk off his 5k PB, which is even more impressive given the nature of the course. In the same race, Morgan Hill and Dylan Teasdale finished 7th and 18th respectively to bring home a bronze medal for the team. Another…
BRAT Juniors Represent Birmingham at the Regional Sportshall Final!
Following on from our attendance in the league matches over the last few months we were delighted to have 10 BRAT athletes selected to represent Team Birmingham at the regional final on Sunday 19th March. There was a fantastic atmosphere in North Solihull Sports Centre as 4 teams from across the wider West Midlands region came together in the regional final – Birmingham, Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Shropshire and Warwickshire The day kicked off with the Under 11s events and BRAT representation came from Elliot Jones and Kai Macmillan in the Birmingham boys team. There was plenty of action in the track events, with some very close races including some new events that did not form part of the league meetings – well done Kai for tackling the Over/Under relay without any prior knowledge of what it involved! On the field events, there were jumps, throws and balancing all taking place.…
Sportshall Athletics – Birmingham League Final Standings
Right, i’m not doing a super long write-up this time. Just to say, i’m fairly sure that we were the loudest team at Sportshall over the three events. My voice is somewhat coming back, but certainly a level of croakiness that reflects how kermitted I was to shouting our athletes on. Because I love writing about me (who better?!), I was impressed that I knew all our athletes’ names. Fellow junior athletes, alas, your generic “come on BRAT” shouts languish behind my name specific shouts! I’m only mentioning this latter point as we had 72 athletes in total across the 3 events, so perhaps it is forgivable that not everyone knows absolutely everyone in the team! So, how did we do? U11 boys – 3rd U13 boys – 2nd U11 girls – 2nd U13 girls – 3rd U15 boys – 3rd U15 girls – 4th The full results can be…
Good luck to BRAT juniors in upcoming national XC champs!
The junior cross-country league season was completed in February, but the biggest events of the XC season are yet to come. There were a number of county/regional races that took place over December and January, attracting the best athletes from Birmingham and the surrounding area. As a result of outstanding performances in these regional championships, we have had a number of athletes selected for the inter-counties XC championships and the English Schools XC championships. In both of these events, athletes will represent their county in a national level competition. Make no mistake about it, attaining county selection is a major achievements, so we’d like to congratulate the following athletes on their selection and give them a big “good luck” ahead of their upcoming races: Inter Counties XC Champs – Saturday March 11th – Prestwold Hall: U13G: Amira Emery U15B: Jack Price U15G: Alba Smith-Pena U17M: Dylan Teasdale, George Astbury, Morgan…
Junior Cross-Country Season Summary
For the second year in a row we have finished 5th overall team out of 21 teams in total, so a lot to feel positive about. We went into the last race in fourth position but narrowly lost that position. Looking back over the previous few years we have finished: 21/22 – 5th 19/20 – 12th 18/19 – 15th 17/18 – 19th It’s pleasing to see that we have consolidated our improvement from last season. During the XC series we had 63, 58 ,57, 51 and 56 athletes competing across the five races. So there has been a massive improvement in the number of athletes that are turning out to compete which has made the difference. We can’t emphasise enough the importance that you all make to the overall team position so you all contribute to the success of the club if you win or finish further down the field! …