YAL Final, Birmingham, Sunday 6th September.

Our young athletes had a superb end to the 2009 season with 4th place in the UK final of the Young Athletes League (we would probably have been first if the result had been based on the noise produced in support of our athletes!).
The conditions were good – dry and warm although a slight wind against the sprinters.
 
58 medals were won
 27 Gold, 20 Silver and 11 Bronze (2008 – total of 46, 7 G, 22 S and 17 B) and there were 57 personal best performances. This was despite missing some of our top athletes at the UK School Games and several others out through injury.
 
Among our top performances were the following:
 
Emily Dudgeon – Our Girls’ Team Captain was awarded U17 Female track athlete of the match for her 800m win in a new meeting record and SYAL record of 2m 10.87s; she also won the 300m and anchored the 4 x 300m relay team to 2nd place.
Ben Robbins – was U13 Boys track athlete of the match for his 200m win in 25.26s. This may be a new Scottish U13 record.
Ben also won the Shot and was 2nd in the 100m.
U15 Boys Relays – Our U15 4 x 400m team of Keiran Reilly, John Glen, Seumas Thomson and Kieran Kivlin set a new meeting record of 3m 36.98s for the 4 x 400m. The 4 x 100m team (Keiran Reilly, Freddy Smith, John Glen and Kieran Kivlin) won by almost 15 metres in the superb time of 45.70s.
Kieran Kivlin – Won 4 Gold medals – U15 Boys 100m and 200m and also anchored both relay teams to victory – his last leg in the 4 x 400m was particularly impressive with a 51.0 split to grab victory in the last 5 metres.
Girls’ 800m – Early on in the meeting our female 800m runners made a big impression on the other clubs – out of the 6 races there were 5 winners and 1 second place – well done Rosie Wilson, Hannah Cameron, Olivia Mackenzie, Blair Wood, Emily Dudgeon and Sam Blair.
 
Apologies to the other athletes – I can’t mention everyone – you were all great and every point counted!!
 
Thanks to the team managers for their hard work and to the coaches and parents for all the support – it was much appreciated.

Photos from the competition are available on:
www.whiteflyerphotography.com/events/UK%20Young%20Athletes%20League%20-%20Finals%20Weekend%202009/index.html

Edinburgh Athletes Results:
UK Final
 
Full Results available on:
http://www.natyal.co.uk/assets/files/FINALS/NYALFinals_Main2009-1.pdf

There will be some TV coverage of the match on the McCain Track and Field Show on Channel 4 which is shown on Sundays at 8.25am. Not sure which week the coverage will actually be shown – keep checking.
(Keith Ridley)