By Fiona Towell

I’m afraid we won’t be bringing it home this year, But ONLY because we didn’t have enough to defend it. NOT because the 9 athletes who turned up didn’t give it their all …

And they did! They sprinted, jumped, threw and ran paarlaufs until they collapsed in a heap at the end when the Grand Prix finished everyone off. And they made almost as much noise as last year.

Katie proved that being the only Under 11 Girl doesn’t stop you from racing relays and gave the boys a run for their Freddos. Our other Under 11 Boys were joined by Ampthill’s sole contestant, Jakob, who was a keen paarlauf participant. Sid had some time to make up however and showed tremendous strength of character as he fought hard from behind to gain some ground. Huge well done boys for making Jakob feel part of the team; and on that note I’d like to mention that two of the officials commented on the ‘lovely bunch of polite kids I’d brought along from Leighton Buzzard’. I was very proud of you all. Dan threw a good shot I was told and Fin PB I believe jumped extremely well. Both put 110% into the short distance races and Aaron made up about 10 metres in one particular Under 11 all out against Biggleswade in the finale. Ash made his Sportshall debut and jumped and ran in everything we threw at him (most Sportshalls won’t leave you quite as exhausted Ash but it was a good introduction).

Nicole and Amy were our only two Under 13 girls and battled it out with Biggleswade whenever they got their breath back.

Arty (spelt correctly J) however finished off the Under 11 Boys (and the afternoon) in style in the Grand Priz with a roll that would have looked slick on the set of a James Bond movie as a parachute landing.

Big thanks to Biggleswade for putting on the event. They had enrolled more helpers than athletes I think and all were extremely efficient at moving equipment around as required. The Official Starter they had ordered from EA was a bit OTT given the numbers but it all went towards making the kids feel like it was a little bit more special than our normal Tuesday night sessions.

Great effort guys. Let’s get the numbers back up again next year and see if we can make it to the Regionals!