Twelve independent schools from all over the North West of England competed at the North West Athletics Championships at Langford Stadium, Manchester on Friday 17th May; including a team of budding Year 5 & 6 athletes from Hunter Hall School in Penrith.
Competitors in the Year 6 events and older, were competing for a chance to represent the ‘North West’ in the National Championships at the Alexander Stadium, Birmingham later in the year. While Year 5 competitors were able to measure themselves against the regions finest with the hope of gauging their chances for the following year.
Earlier in the year, children from Hunter Hall had received specialist coaching from Lenni Miller; a local athletics coach based out of Carlisle (Border Harriers). Lenni’s son, Nick Miller competed for Team GB at the Olympics in the Hammer event. He was also the gold medallist at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, a silver medallist at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and won gold at the 2015 European Athletics U23 Championships. Lenni came in to run four athletics training sessions at the school after which they followed up with their usual school athletics programme.
While some found the level of competition fierce, many rose to the challenge and the training sessions paid off. By the end of all the track and field events at the North West Athletics Championships, Hunter Hall pupils had claimed victory in six different events and set three new school records.
Track:
Luca Holt Stott – Year 5 70m boys’ Hurdle champion (15.72 sec)
Lucy Hetherington- Year 5 girls’ 1500m champion (5m 49 sec)
Field:
Lexi Bird- Year 5 girls’ Shot Put champion (5m 88cm)
Samuel Wrighton- Year 5 boys’ Shot Put champion (5m 80cm)
Lucy Hetherington- Year 5 girls’ Discus champion (14m 35cm)
Francesca Rucker – Year 6 girls’ shot put champion (6m 38cm)
Podium finishes were also earned in the following events:
Louis Simpson finishing 2nd in the year 5 boys’ high jump
Samuel Wrighton finishing 2nd in the Year 5 boys’ discus
Paisley Cater finishing 2nd in the Year 6 girls’ hurdles
Lucy Connelly finishing 3rd in the Year 6 girls’ shot
Stefan Carp finishing 3rd in the Year 5 boys’ hurdles
Special congratulations must go to Francesca Rucker, who now goes forward to the National Athletics Championships on the 1st of July in Birmingham