FOUR young athletes from Langholm tasted success Scottish National Athletics Championships at Aberdeen at the weekend.
Matilda Brockley, who is only 15, won the U20 triple jump with a magnificent personal best jump of 11.92m, an improvement of 44cm on her previous personal best. That moves Matilda to number two in the UK rankings in the U17 triple jump, and she will now head to Cardiff next weekend to compete for the Scotland U20 National Team.
Not to be outdone, her younger sister, Antonia, also had a fantastic day in the U15 events. She won a bronze medal in the 100m; she then followed this up with a jump of 5.19m in the long jump, an increase of 14cm on her previous personal best to win a silver medal and jump to third in the Scottish rankings. Finally, she took another bronze in the 75m hurdles with a time of 11.8secs.
Ava Bell was competing in the U15 triple jump and jumped brilliantly to beat her previous personal best by 19cm to record a jump of 9.79cm. This was enough to secure her the Scottish Championship bronze medal. Finally, a very young 11-year-old Aoiffion MB was competing in her first event as an affiliated athlete and only her fourth race on a running track, following local events in June and July.
Competing in the U13 100m with 42 other athletes, Aoiffion qualified third fastest from six heats to go into the semi-finals and, then went on to qualify for the final as the fourth fastest runner. Up against athletes nearly 18 months older than her in the final, Aoiffion ran a fantastic race, fractionally missing out on a medal. However, she recorded a time of 13.69secs, making her the fastest year one Under 13 athlete in Scotland and a time that should elevate her to near the top of the Scottish U13 rankings.
All four girls receive funding through the “Welcome to Langholm” Future Champions Awards.
