It was another record-breaking turnout for East Lothian athletes at the recent Team East Lothian (TEL) Open graded event, held at Meadowmill on Saturday 4th September. Athletes from East Lothian competed in almost every discipline at the event, showing the strength and diversity of our athletes across the county.
In the open-graded style of events, boys and girls, teens and youths, children and adults all compete in heats together based on their current seeding, so it gives the athletes a good chance at competing against others of similar ability, which often leads to PB performances. This proved to be the case, as there were many PB performances recorded on the day.
The first event was the longest – the mixed 3000m. Both competitors from East Lothian set PBs at this distance with Theo Cunningham from Team East Lothian (M17) running 10m14.02s and Rachel Stevens from Haddington (W15) setting a time of 11m46.82s for the distance. There were six young East Lothian athletes setting PBs in the 600m event, with the fastest of these being Morven Kenny from Haddington with a time of 1m58.06s. Others achieving PBs for the 600m were Imogen Turner (Musselburgh), Branna Kenny (Haddington), Tessa Russell (Dunbar), Ava-Rose Curtis (Musselburgh) and Ollie Leishman (Musselburgh).
Poppy Smith competed in the frame running 75m event and clocked a time of 17.98s. Poppy also competed in the 200m frame-running event and set a new PB for herself of 47:28s – impressive efforts, especially considering she only begun competing in this discipline very recently.
Setting PBs in the 200m were Isla Ritchie (Musselburgh), Cridhe Maxwell (TEL), Aifric Fisher (Haddington), Fergus Taylor (TEL), Aoife Swan-Ashe (Haddington), Kendra Laird (TEL), Layla Magee (TEL) and Jake Nicol (Mussellburgh).
In the 300m, both Isaac Stevenson and Katie Alexander from Team East Lothian set PBs of 42.15s and 49.76s respectively. In the 400m, Joe Fraser set a new PB of 1m 1.52s.
The 800m event was the most popular of the day, with over 100 athletes entered to compete the middle distance. There were PBs galore from East Lothian athletes, with the fastest of these being Aidan Page (TEL), U17, with a time of 2m 3.04s. The fastest overall time on the day for the 800m was from Aberdeen AAC athlete, Lewis Watt (M20), running 1m57.61. Also running PBs from East Lothian were Eily Sinclair, Thomas Gornall, Sula Russell, Ben Krieves, Howie Allison, Jake Page, Cristina Elliot, Ella Nicolson, Joe Smith, Donald Ross, Innes Wright, Maja Thomson and Fraser Lupton. All athletes train with Team East Lothian.
There were again PBs aplenty in the field events. Stella McGregor from Team East Lothian set a new PB of 10.55m in the triple jump, with Erin Hall finishing 1st in the event, with a jump of 10.85m. Gemma Walkingshaw (TEL) was second in the shot put and threw 9.01m to set a new best throw for herself. In the long jump, sisters Morven and Branna Kenny, from Haddington Running Club, set new PBs, jumping 3.29m and 2.84m, respectively. Adam Hoole set yet another PB for himself in the discus with a throw of 36.50m and finished 1st in the event, with Rebecca Kerr from Haddington finishing 4th and setting a new PB of 17.18m. In the high jump, Lucas Leishman (Musselburgh) finished 7th with a new PB height of 1.25m
Congratulations to all competitors for settings so many new PBs at the end of the 2021 track and field season.