UK Final Silver Medal for Stockport Harrier Catherine Giller at UK Sportshall Athletics Final
This weekend saw the culmination of the Sportshall Athletics season with the UK Final held at Manchester’s SportCity where there was plenty of Stockport Harriers involvement.
Sportshall Athletics was initiated over 30 years ago as an alternative to cross country over the winter months to keep young athletes involved and stop them disappearing to other sports. Many of today’s elite Athletes including Heptathletes Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Morgan Lake and sprinters Martyn Rooney and Mark Lewis-Francis have taken part in sportshall in the past and indeed many of our own Athletes and Coaches at the Club took their first steps into Athletics as part of our successful Sportshall squad that now competes in the Greater Manchester League for Under 11, 13 and 15 Athletes.
Over the winter months Under 13 and Under 15 Athletes have competed hard in their local and county leagues to earn selection for their County teams to compete in regional finals held across the UK. This weekend, the winning County teams from those regional finals came together at SportCity with the Under 13’s final on Saturday and the Under 15’s on Sunday.
Competing for the Greater Manchester Under 13 Girls Team who had won the North West Regional Final back in February was Stockport Harrier Catherine Giller (Mike Frost) who put in a series of excellent individual performance including a seventh place finish in the Standing Triple Jump with a best jump of 6.59m, an agonising fourth in the 2 Lap Sprint with a time of 21.5 seconds and, finally, a hard earned UK Silver Medal in the 4x2 Lap Relay. Emilio Ramierez (Mike Frost) also competed for Greater Manchester in the Under 13 Boys, competing in the relay and in the Shot Put, where he finished fourteenth in the competition with a best throw of 8.91m.
Alongside Catherine in that medal-winning Relay was Laura Hickey (Joe Frost) who competes for Leigh Harriers but trains with Stockport. Laura finished tenth in both the 2 Lap Sprint and Standing Triple Jump too, with performances of 22.1 seconds and 6.48m respectively. Former Stockport/DASH Athlete Adam Day, who relocated to the South East had a brilliant Day, selected as Berkshire team Captain, collecting four medals as well as taking the team title with his Berkshire teammates.
However it wasn’t just on the track that Stockport were involved, with Club Coach Mike Frost coordinating the event alongside his colleagues as part of his role as a development officer for Sportshall Athletics, Club Parent and Volunteer Chris Waugh and friends running an excellent media and social media centre for the weekend. Club members Joe Frost, Andy 0’Connor, Peter Bridgland and Alice Giller were also involved as volunteers, setting up the arena and assisting with the competition.