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.
BRATs Do Brum Half
BRATs at the Birmingham half marathon and 10k.
Racing in Taiwan
James Drakeford
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 Women Teams at Midlands 6-Stage Road Relays
BRAT women had a fantastic day of racing at the Midlands 6-Stage Road Relays.
BRAT Success at the Midlands Road Relays
BRAT team have great success at the 12 stage relays.
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.…
Racing BRATs Update
There have been a few BRATs racing over the last week, here’s an update on how they got on.
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…