BRAT Juniors Win @ Heart of England League
The recent Heart of England competition at Stourport was a day of miracles. Firstly, the weekend began and was punctuated by torrential downpours. Alas, those competing on the Saturday at the Mason Trophy may have got pretty wet! Not only did we manage to escape the rain, but the sprinters also enjoyed a home straight tailwind, it NEVER happens. I imagine the back straight wasn’t quite so kind! After our absolute demolition of the opposition in the first match back in April, where we won by 350 points, I decided to shuffle the team around. We had a large number of athletes that hadn’t competed in the league before and quite a lot that hadn’t ever competed on the track before. Big pressure, well done guys. I was therefore a bit shocked and, I have to admit, a bit worried when some of the other teams arrived on coaches, unfurled…
Mason Trophy 18/06/2022
A record 11 BRATs were selected to compete for their Schools’ County at the Mason Trophy in Stoke on 18th June – 10 for the West Midlands and 1 for Warwickshire. They competed across all disciplines – sprints, distance, hurdles, jumps and throws which shows the diversity of the talent within the club. After the scorching temperatures of the previous week, the day was a tad on the cool and wet side, but this did not dampen the spirits of the youngsters who gave it their all. Bonheur Tshibola, Tywana Kuluziza and Nathaniel Walker had already hit the entry standard for the English Schools in their respective events which is a fantastic achievement. There were 2 BRAT podiums on the day – Jamie Callaghan was 2nd in the hammer with a PB of 44.69m and Bonheur Tshibola was 3rd in the 300m Hurdles with a PB of 46.36. Other results…
Warwickshire & Worcestershire Championships
The weekend of 14th / 15th May saw the County Championships take place, and BRAT were represented in both Warwickshire and Worcestershire. There was a full complement of events over the two days; both individual for the older athletes and Quadrathons for the U11’s. Warwickshire saw 4 male entries in the Quad, with Kai Macmillan winning Bronze (just 1 point off 2nd), Elliot Jones 4th, Zac Smith 5th and Sebastian Emery 9th. There were 5 girls, with Josephine Colclough winning Silver, Amber Stevens 4th, Hiba Bailey 9th, and Erin Colclough and Darcy McDaid joint 9th. There were no girls in Worcestershire, but there were 5 boys with Oliver Knight winning Gold, Tiernan Clark 9th, Joseph Baker 10th and Zckai Bibb 11th. Athlete of the weekend award goes to U17 Bonheur Tshibola who scooped 5 medals – 2 Golds in the 300m Hurdles and Shot, Silver in the 80m Hurdles and…
BRAT Juniors Dominate at First Heart of England League
This was our first real league fixture since 2019. We are currently in division 3 and our aim is to be promoted at the end of the season. We had one fixture (that we won) last year, but that didn’t count towards promotion due to it being a fixture based on location rather than the actual teams in our league. This time around, we were up against Bromsgrove & Redditch, Tamworth, Bicester, Corby and a few other teams. To say that we won would be an understatement. Of the 8 gender/age groups on the day, ranging from u11g to u17m, we won EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. We scored a total of 819.5 points, with second and third places scrapping it out between themselves on 457 and 448 respectively. We scored almost the same number of points as the next two teams combined! How did we manage to pull this…
BRAT Juniors @ the Junior Great Birmingham Run
The Junior Great Birmingham Run was open to children aged 9-14 and covered the first 1.25km of the adults’ route before looping back to the finish (2.5km in total). In the girls’ race, Darcey Payne finished 14th (3rd in the 9-11 age category) in 12:33 and Oshi Knox 22nd (7th for 9-11s) in 13:02. In the boys’ race, Ollie Knight was 2nd in 9:07, Josh Taylor 3rd in 9:19, Elliot Dawlatly 4th in 9:19 (a very exciting finish with Josh!), Seb Horton 7th in 10:09 and Joe Baker 8th in 10:13. Ollie, Seb and Joe made it a BRAT 1-2-3 in the boys’ 9-11 age category. Well done to all the BRATs who competed!
Birchfield Harriers Young Athletes Open Meeting – 23/04/2022
With the new Alexander Stadium not being quite ready for general use, Birchfield held their annual Young Athletes Open Meeting at the Pingles Stadium in Nuneaton on 23rd April. For many of the young Junior BRATs this was their first taste of competing for medals in a stadium, and across all age groups BRAT won an incredible 28 medals – 12 Gold, 8 Silver and 8 Bronze! The day had promised to be warm, but there was a strong headwind in play which the athletes did well to battle. The U11’s took part in a Quadrathon which consisted of a 75m, 600m, long jump and howler throw, while the older members took part in individual events. 6 of the 13 competitors for the U11 M Quadrathon and 5 of the 11 competitors for the U11 F Quadrathon were BRATs which is an amazing presence and they were able to give…
English Schools XC Champs & Midlands (not quite) 5k Champs!
English Schools XC Champs A small number of BRAT’s achieved the fantastic honour of representing the West Midlands School team and Worcestershire schools at the ESAA English Schools Cross Country Championship’s in Hop Farm, Kent. The weather was more like that of the track season and not cross country, and the course was extremely flat and fast with hardly any mud! The first race of the day to include BRAT athletes was the Junior boys. Jack Price was our 1st athlete home in 191st place, this is a fantastic achievement considering it’s only Jack’s second ever cross country! Niklas Van Mourik was next in 271st place after getting spiked early on in the race. In the Inter boys race we had 3 athletes competing. Will Walker was first home in 135th after being dead last at the start of the race, he was followed home by Morgan Hill in 221st…
BRAT XC Juniors – Inter Counties Cross Country Championships – Loughborough Saturday 12 March
The race is the UK cross country championships and incorporates the UK Cross Challenge Final. The senior and U20 races are used every two years as the World Cross Country Trial race to select the Great Britain teams so its the top domestic race in the calendar. Athletes have to be selected by their counties to compete with 8 running in each of the junior age groups and 9 in the seniors. To even make it to this event, representing the county, is a huge achievement. Well done to the athletes who competed. Some of the races had over 300 competitors! For most it was their first time in a National Championship race so it was a excellent learning experience for their development. U13B Seb Stendall 148th, U13G Alba Smith Pena 242nd, U15B Dylan Teasdale 229th, U17M Alex Dickson 133rd, Alice Stewart 128th. Sen Men Jonny Cullen 263rd & Matt…
Junior biathlon
2 Junior BRATS took part in the British Modern Biathlon Championships in Bath on Saturday 26th February. The event consisted of swimming and a 1600m run. Jemima Jackson finished 7th overall, and took an astounding 15 seconds off of her 1600m time to run a PB of 5.59. U14 Alba Smith-Pena finished 11th over all in her age group with a 1.11 100m swim and a 6.11 1600m run. Congratulations to both athletes.
A final fling for the BRAT Junior XC athletes
This is just a brief summary e-mail to round off all the outstanding junior performances in this season’s cross-country league. As a club, it looks like we have taken a massive step in the right direction, with an overall finishing position, after all fixtures, of 5th place. This is a huge improvement on where we were when the league last ran 2 years ago where we finished 12th. The season before that we were 14th. Looking at the overall results, there is a clear distinction between the larger, well-established clubs and some of the smaller local clubs. I think we have successfully bridged that gap this season and have infiltrated the higher ranks, beating teams such as Birchfield and Tipton. As has been said throughout the series, everyone that took part in the cross-country events this winter has played a role. Every point counts, every position counts. Congratulations to you…
Junior Indoor Opens – weekend of 19th & 20th Feb 2022
The weekend of 19th and 20th February saw a number of Junior BRATS take part in indoor opens. U13 Erin McDaid travelled to Lea Valley for the 60m hurdles where she ran a PB time of 10.84, ranking her 12th in the UK, while other BRATS took part in the MCAA City of Birmingham Games at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham. It was an amazing experience for all, and for some it was their first taste of an indoor arena. There were many PBs across the age groups and disciplines, with a few of the highlights below. 1st year U15 Evie Rendell secured 3 PBs, with a time of 10.73 in the 60m hurdles, a high jump of 1.40m and a shot put of 7m. 1st year U17 Lily Smith ran a PB in the 60m in a time of 8.37 and sister May a PB of 8.78. Further U17…
Record number of BRAT Juniors qualify for the National English Schools Cross Country Championships
Record number of BRAT Juniors qualify for the National English Schools Cross Country Championships. The outstanding recent performances of our juniors in the West Midlands Young Athletes Cross Country League (wmyaccl) have been backed up by another strong showing in the West Midlands Schools XC Championships held in Warley Woods on 22 Jan 2022. On a beautiful sunny day, we had 15 BRAT juniors competing on a hilly course in 4 age groups that differ from those in the league (minor Y7, junior Y8/9, inter Y10/11, and senior Y12/13). In the junior/inter/senior categories a top 6 finish guarantees qualification for the prestigious National English Schools Cross Country Championships at Hop Farm in Kent on 19 March. Athletes in the minor category can enter the primary schools’ National Championships in Prestwold Hall on March 26, but no qualification is needed. In the minor girls’ race Amira finished 5th, while in the…