The Middlesex Young Athletes League came to a close with a well attended final fixture at Parliament Hill on 20th July. Highgate Harriers’ U11 boys finished on a high by winning their group and overall, the team finished 4th.
Huge shout out to Claire Cameron who has been team managing the unwieldy beast of a squad made up of 8 different teams (by age and gender) across 10 different disciplines. And being a development league there is the opportunity to enter lots of non-scorers. Athlete numbers peaked at the penultimate fixture with over 60 Highgate Harriers taking part on one of the hottest days of the year. Whilst many participants -athletes, officials and parents did feel the full force of the heat- Luke Tomlinson took over 10 seconds off his 800m pb to bring it down to 2m 05.
Claire was on holiday for the last fixture but having done all the hard work in building up the squad across the season (numbers are definitely up) it proved a busy day and successful day for athletes and also not forgetting all the helpers and officials at Parliament Hill.
A whole host of personal bests and setting distances and times at new events with special mention for high jumpers Amani Osman U17 1.66 (a 10th place ranking in the UK) and Milo Reynolds U17 pb 1.70. Amongst the distance athletes 2 outstanding pbs in the 1500m for Anna Murray U13G 5.28 and Artham Papadukis U13B 5.14.
The overall league title went to Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers which is only the 3rd club to win the MYAL title since the league’s inception. This year’s win takes them to draw with Highgate Harriers with 3 League titles Highgate winning in 2017, 2018 and 2019. With this season showing consistency, we can expect the league position to improve and perhaps return to top of the table.
