Now that the cross-country season is truly over the track season has begun in earnest. This week saw the start of the first of the secondary school district rounds, District A, held at Mary Peter’s Track. Wednesday was the turn for senior and Intermediate school pupils (Years 4 to Upper six)
The events are broken down on school years with the Inter category combining years four and five and the senior category combining Lower and Upper six pupils. Depending on the distances and numbers entered in each event, the track races were either held as straight finals or pupils had to progress through semi-finals to run finals later in the day. At the time of writing the report no results are known.
East Down had five participants across the events; four were competing for Down High School-(Charlotte Barr, Jacob Crawford, Alex Robinson, and Oliver Robinson) and one for Assumption Girls School (Anna Gardiner).
Oliver Robinson decided to try both the 400m and 800m senior races so he was glad that the 400m was a straight final. He ran a well-placed race in lane one but needed to slow down approaching the finish line because the blocks had not been removed and one of the officials was standing in his lane. He placed second and acknowledged that the presence of the blocks would not have changed the result. He was disappointed with his 800m race finding his legs very heavy from the 400m.
Jacob Crawford decided to try the steeplechase for the first time. The senior and intermediate races were combined so in the end he ran 2k and was pleased with his fourth position.
Anna Gardiner ran both the 3k and 5 k races and came home with a silver in the 3k and gold in the 5k.
Alex and Charlotte were competing in the combined year 4 and 5 Intermediate races.
Charlotte ran in one of the 800m heats and placed fifth in a highly competitive race.
Alex decided, like his brother, to try the 400m and 800m races. Unlike his brother’s race, which was a straight final, there were three heats for the 400m. The winner of each heat automatically qualified for the final and was joined by the next 5 fastest runners. Alex placed 4th in his fast heat and did enough to qualify for the final. He then ran the 800m final but during the race realised that he had done something to his calf while running the 400m. He placed 5th and after the race decided to withdraw form the final of the 400m. Both Charlotte and Alex are in Year 4 so are young for this category so they have another go next year.