In the 2007/08 track and field season some of the club’s long standing records were broken by three very promising Harriers’ under-20 athletes.
In the field strongman Greg Watkins was prominent in the shot putt and discus throw in the discus Greg finished the season with a discus throw of 43 metres 60 cm which ranked him 21st in the UK and also a shot putt of 13 metres 78 cm to rank him 21st in the UK.
The benchmark for any up and coming sprinter is to go through the 11 second barrier in their career.
Under-20 Harriers’ athlete Rory Evans managed this at Gateshead with a time of 10.79 seconds which ranked Rory 15th fastest under-20.
Notable Harriers from the past who broke the 11 seconds barrier and went on to achieve high standards were Toby Box who competed for GB at the European Championships in 1992, Neil Sharp who won an England junior representation and also Dominic Bradley who eventually went on to win AAA senior sprint hurdles titles indoors and outdoors.
In the middle distance 1,500 metres and 3,000 metres another athlete who broke a long standing club record that goes back to 1988 was Ross Millington he ran 3.45 for the metric mile which equates to running a four minute mile.
Which one day we hope Ross can become the first Harrier in history to achieve the landmark sub-four clocking for the mile.
The time ranked Ross second in the UK’s under-20 1,500 metre rankings, his other notable achievement which has only been achieved by one other Harrier as an under-17 was to be ranked number one in the UK’s under-20 3,000 metres.
Thanks must go to Steve Vernon who helped pace Ross to 2,000 metres at SportCity back in February.
Well done to the three of them and I hope that there record breaking achievements can inspire other Club youngsters in the future.
It will be interesting to see how long these high standards set by Rory, Greg and Ross will last over the coming years but remember records are there to be broken.