Youth Development League, Match Two, Hillingdon - 20th May 2017
Saturday ‘s visit to Hillingdon for the season’s second Youth Development League meeting started off like something from A Sound of Music, with Sister Sian leading her group of seven athletes and two Coaches in tow behind her as we set off from Waterloo Station at 9:30 am, having met under the iconic clock, although not so iconic as to stop half the group from waiting outside the station in blissful ignorance until they received frantic calls from Sian. I did think to myself, ‘How can you miss the clock, even Del Trotter managed to find Rachael there,’ but my inner coward told me to keep my thoughts to myself.Anyway, off we went, arriving at Hillingdon town centre, where Sian had her second cup of coffee of the trip thus far, disappearing with fellow Coach Bob Bridges into the first Costa she saw, leaving yours truly with seven hyper-active Juniors. Three of them spotted a Greggs and they were off, obviously for a salad and some fruit. Two of the remaining four had to be restrained from dashing off to the nearby Game Station. On the return of the Greggs abscondees we then saw five of the Juniors shoot off into Poundland (most asked question at the til “how much is that?” – err, the clue’s above the door) for refuelling on those ever so essential sweets and cheesy biscuits (note to Committee, could we organise an athletes nutrition day please? Or at least convince our Juniors that a handful of salty snacks TWO minutes before a race is probably not the best preparation.)The group then headed off for the mile walk to the stadium, with Bob going old school and favouring a printed page from his A-Z rather than the infinitely better Google maps route-finder playing through my headphones. Okay, I did try to persuade him to go left instead of right, but we would have found our way back easily enough without going too far the wrong way. Honest.We arrived at the track just in time for the rain. Medium to light. Interspersed with torrential. Interspersed with hail.With seven other athletes arriving with their parents, we were probably the smallest team there, but we convinced ourselves that quality would outperform quantity. A bit like the Charge of The Light Brigade. Although we all know how that ended. Anyway, we had a good day out. First timer Jayden James acquitted himself well in the long jump, the 100 metres and the 200 metres, whilst fellow first timer Elijah Booth did well in both the 200m and the long jump.
Richard Klein ran superbly, muscling his way to 2nd in 11.9s the U15 Boys 100 metres before going one better to win the 200 metres comfortably in 24.1s. And so the day progressed. Jumps were jumped, throws were thrown, and of course races were, err, raced. And then we pulled in our big guns for the middle distance races (although actually, none of them seem to be much more than 5' tall, so maybe we should call them our little guns?). 
First up in the U13 Boys 800 metres was Henry Shippey, who is beginning to put together some serious training sessions. Sitting near the back of the pack for the first lap of his 800 metres, and looking as cool as a cucumber, he moved up over the next 200 and went past two athletes in the next 100, only just failing to pass the winner in the home straight, finishing second in a new PB of 2.30.1. He was justifiably delighted. No pressure Henry, but there's a 2.25 in there trying to make an appearance in your next race.Next up were Blaine Robinson and Sam Pound for the U13 Boys 1500. Discarding 4 of his 5 tops, including that oh so essential Barbour jacket that no serious athlete can warm up in without, Blaine went straight to the front from the gun (having previously been told not to cover his ears on the starting line to block the sound of the bang – why do England Athletics never teach you this on their coaching courses?) Within a lap he was 100 metres clear. The crowd watched with a collective smirk as they waited for the inevitable collapse, with the chasing pack reeling him in. However, they don’t know Blaine. At the end of lap two he was 150 metres in front. And at the end of lap three he was 200 metres clear. Casting a glance to the opposite corner of the track, Blaine realised that he was a little bit better than clear, and he decided to just hold his lead, finishing with 4.47 dead. He could probably have run 3 or 4 seconds quicker if he hadn’t looked at his watch every 30 metres. Or maybe he was just checking for texts? Blaine then shot off with the fiver his Mum had given him that morning to see if he could buy and subsequently consume his own weight in Chuppa Chupps (which in fairness isn't all that much). Meanwhile, behind him, another Belgrave athlete, Sam Pound, returning from a month away from training with glandular fever and having only trained lightly for a week, had started cautiously but was now picking off the opposition, coming through over the last 60 metres to place a solid third in 5.27.1, pipping the fourth placed runner by 0.5 seconds and winning the B race by 10 seconds. Sam was rightly pleased as punch, as evidenced by his post-race grin.
Belgrave’s ever present and ever consistent Juliet Michot represented the Club in the U15 Girls 1500, having only just found herself in that age category a couple of months ago. She raced exactly as instructed, sitting no more than 2 metres off the leading pair for 3 laps, before passing the third athlete with 250 metres to go. We then saw what was probably the most gutsy, and certainly the most entertaining finish of the day, as Juliet clawed her way back towards the leader who had made a significant break at 200 metres. The two of them then raced it out for 70 metres, side by side, with Juliet just missing out by one tenth of a second. That’s one whole blink of an eye. After 1500 metres of pain. Even the winner thought that Juliet had won as the pair embraced on the line. Watching with camera in hand I was so enthralled by her effort that I didn’t manage to snap the finish. That has to be her best race to date, and there is more to come.
We managed to pull together a relay teams for the 4 x 100 U15 Boys, finishing an excellent third in 52.2 seconds, before our U13 Girls, not to be outdone, matched them with a third place in 60.6 seconds, with batons intact and in hand at the finish. And that was after practising pre-race with water bottles. Maybe our Olympic Coaches should take note?With rain threatening, again, we picked up our baggage and headed home, sans Google maps but avec Sian’s underground route finder (please note the nod to our French contingent with my cod French).A big thank you to all of our athletes and the Mums and Dads who brought them. And to Carl Lawton, one of our long standing Club and Belgrave Committee members and race walkers, who turned out for the day for no reason other than to support our Juniors because he cares. Nice one CarlThe next YDL meeting is a home fixture at Battersea Park again on Sunday 18th June, when we will hopefully have more athletes out to show the competition how well we can score when we combine our quality with our quantity. RESULTS:100m U15 Boys A2nd Richard Klein 11.9s100m U15 Boys B4th Elijah Booth 13.8s100m U15 Boys NS1st Jayden James 13.7s200m U15 Boys A1st Richard Klein 24.1s200m U15 Boys B3rd Jayden James 28.5s200m U15 Boys B3rd Elijah Booth 28.5sLong Jump U15 Boys A4th Jayden James 4.54mLong Jump U15 Boys B4th Elijah Booth 3.37m100m U15 Girls A5th Osayi Egharevba 14.0s100m U15 Girls B5th Ramzil Kamara 16.8s200m U15 Girls A6th Osayi Egharevba 29.5s1500m U15 Girls A2nd Juliet Michot 5.42.6sLong Jump U15 Girls A6th Osayi Egharevba 3.48m800m U13 Boys A2nd Henry Shippey 2:30.1s1500m U13 Boys A1st Blaine Robinson 4.47.0s1500m U13 Boys B1st Sam Pound 5.27.1s75m U13 Girls A3rd Esme O’Brien Thomas 10.8s75m U13 Girls B3rd Tegan Ochola 11.5s75m U13 Girls NS4th Keren Manzangala 12.3s150m U13 Girls A3rd Esme O’Brien Thomas 21.7s150m U13 Girls B4th Rebecca Manzangala 23.8sLong Jump U13 Girls A2nd Tegan Ochola 3.91mLong Jump U13 Girls B3rd Rebecca Manzangala 3.22m4 x 100 U15 Boys3rdOsamuyi EgharevbaElijah BoothJayden JAMESRichard Klein 52.2s4 x 100 U13 Girls3rdKeren ManzangalaTegan OcholaRebecca ManzangalaEsme O'Brien-Thomas 60.6s