Saturday saw athletes from Waveney Valley Athletics Club travel down the A12 to Ipswich to compete in round one of the Suffolk County Sportshall League. Almost 30 athletes from Waveney competed amongst 100 including those from JAFFA, Northgate and Ipswich CIT, with more Clubs set to compete in round two.
Sportshall athletics provides winter competition in various running, relays, throwing and jumping events for young athletes between 8 and 15. It is a Club and league based system, with the top performing athletes chosen to represent their County at the close of the season.
Saturday saw some fantastic performances including a number of debuts from Waveney’s newer athletes who pulled on the black yellow and red shirt for the first time.
Waveney had two U11 girls and boys teams competing, with notable performances from Benjamin Cone in the Speedbounce, who took victory and also broke the Club record with 49 jumps in 20 seconds, Vaughan Beckham was 2nd with 45 jumps, and Theo Hudson who won the chest push with 6.65m, and also the 2 lap race, with Isaac Phillips 2nd for Waveney. The girls saw similar success with Abeni Beckham claiming 1st place in the standing triple jump with 5.50m, smashing her previous club record, and Brooke Oram with 1st place and 13.30m in the soft javelin, and also 1st, jointly with Farren Turner, with 5.0m in the chest push. Maisie Elvin-Andrews took 2nd place with 52 jumps in the speedbounce, breaking the previous club record by 1 in the process.
Waveney had an U13 girls and boys team, although both were a member short, and therefore couldn’t compete in the relays which hampered their overall score. In the individual events though, Mia Hopson won the 2 lap,with Harriet Gooch 2nd who also won the Speedbounce breaking the Club record in the process with 80 jumps in 30 seconds. Mia also won the standing long and triple jumps with leaps of 1.88m 5.30m. The boys saw Alec Wilson winning the 2 lap, Callum Hopson the 4 lap, and Jamie Besford the 6 lap races. Callum also won the standling long jump with 2.02m with Jamie the standing triple jump with 5.50m.
U15 athletes compete as individuals, with Lauren Oram the highest female points scorer on the day on 144 with her nearest rival achieving 118. Lauren won 2 of her events, with a further two 2nd and 3rd places taking her to victory. Waveney achieved more success with the top 3 boys. Mason Hodds led the way with 147 points, winning 5 of the 6 events, closely followed by Aidan Hewitt with 141 points and James Russell with 138 and Tom Russell also performing well in his first outing in Club colours.
Waveney athletes saw late summer results success from the Norfolk Quadkids league with Joel Burgess placed 3rd in the boys year 4-6 over the series, Abeni Beckham 4th in the girls year 4-6 (with Brooke Oram 5th, Grace Forster 6th) and a fantastic 1st place for Aidan Hewitt in the boys year 7-8 who also won each of the events.