News: May 2021

A wet, miserable Monday evening at Stevenage saw a return to pole vault competition for the Club’s young athletes. Gripping a wet pole difficult for all and for two youngsters their first taste of competition proved challenging. Dylan Baines (U23M) cleared 3m80 in his first competition for 18 months. Aimie Taylor (U17F) cleared 2m90 just 10cm short of her personal best in her first outing since March 2020. Alex Scott (U17M) put a Club vest on for the first time clearing 2m50. This was a good performance as Alex has not been able to attend PV sessions recently due to a clash with Climbing. Lucy Baverstock (U15G) started vaulting a fortnight ago and surprised herself with a 2m clearance and Reece Wannerton (U15G) cleared 1m50

Thanks go to Alison Barber who acted as Field Referee for the evening, Beth Harris and Jane Taylor who made the trip from Nottingham to Field Judge and Shannon Rapacchi who coaches most of the young athletes.

Like many Clubs SNHAC have found negotiating the path through COVID ‘ups and down’ tricky. Restricted numbers on the track have meant the Club subsidising sessions when track fees do not cover track hire costs.

Sharing equipment has been difficult (cleaning and quantity) and replacing coaches who have retired or moved in the last 18 months expensive at a time when income is lower than normal.

With the help of Hertfordshire Sports Partnership and Funding4Sport the Club submitted a funding bid to Sport England’s Return to Play Fund.

We heard today we have been successful and have been awarded funding to cover the cost of 2 Coach, 2 Coaching Assistant and 3 Athletics Leaders Courses, funding for additional Sportshall and Training equipment for our younger athletes and funds to cover some of the shortfall in track fees and PPE. This will make a big difference in the Club’s work moving forward.

A big thank you to Richard Sutcliffe at Funding for Sport, Shelley Woods at HSP and Norma Harris for their efforts and support.

The last few weekends have seen increasing numbers of SNHAC athletes out competing.

Competing in Nuneaton, Under 17 Isaac Whitten came close to beating his 1500m pb in his first race for nearly 2 years, finishing in 4.56.4 . At the same competition U13 Enid Whitten threw a pb of 5.27 in the shot.

The 25th April saw club athletes competing in Lee Valley, Loughborough, Coventry, Ashford. Pick of the performances came from U17 Jess Astill who went to the top of the UK rankings with a 300m time of 40.27. There were also pbs for Jacob Kinchin-Smith (U20 100m in 11.72 seconds), Bobb Pitman (U15 100m 13.07), Annabel Howells (U17 300m 44.23 seconds), Bhuvanesh Ramnauth (U20 400m 53.08), Delphine LehrFreund (U20 400m 60.82), Ed Laws (U20 400m Hurdles 58.30).

Competing in the Lee Valley Sprints Evening on 28th April U17 Jamie Joseph bagged pbs in both the 100M (11.7) and 200m ( 23.91).

The coming weeks will see more action from opens as athletes prepare for the league season which this year starts at the end of May.