EK GIRLS' MEDAL SUCCESS AT RELAY
East Kilbride club’s success at championships
East Kilbride Athletic Club’s youngsters were in fine form at the Lanarkshire Road Relay Championships last week as they brought home a host of medals.
The club have always had a strong presence at this annual event at Drumpellier Park in Coatbridge and it was EKAC’s young contingent who starred on the day with the senior members of the squad returning home empty handed.
The under-11 girls had a strong showing with their ‘A’ team of Millie Aitken (5:29), Madeleine Hopkins (5:23) and Cara Gilbride (4:57) narrowly missing out on a medal, despite their best efforts.
However, at the same age group, the boys fared better, with their ‘A’ team of Sam Hosie (4:49), Ryan McNamara (5:03) and Sam Dow (4:41) taking home bronze medals with superb runs.
That performance helped the club gather momentum as, following that result, the U13 girls rose to the challenge in the next race with their ‘A’ team taking the Lanarkshire title by 49 seconds over the 2km course from Ronhill Cambuslang.
Ella Comiskey set the team on their way with a fantastic run in what was the fastest leg of the race (7:12) and this set up Leah Muirhead on the second leg who increased the lead with another superb run (7:21) to hand the baton over to Abbie Kirwan.
She ran a time of 7:32 to bring the girls home in first place by the huge margin.
That success spurred on the U15 girls’ ‘A’ team, as they won the title at their age group by an even greater margin of 59 seconds for the 2.4km race.
Brilliant running from Lucy Muirhead on leg one – with the second fastest leg of the race (8:49) – set up Sarah Connolly to increased their lead with a strong run (9:28) and Hannah Anderson (8:45) delivered the quickest leg of the race to ease to the title.
Meanwhile, the U15 boys team, comprising Joseph Hagan (9:09), Cammy MacDonald (9:21) and Hamish Anderson (9:04) also ran very well but just missed out on the medals this year.
In the last race of the day the EKAC seniors – defending champions from 2015 – hoped to sign things off in style.
With some key members being plagued by injury and one currently on a scholarship in America it was always going to be a tough task, however.
East Kilbride put forward two teams for the 4x4km race.
In team ‘A’ Grant Baillie got the ball rolling on the first (12:39) with the second fastest time of the day, no doubt buoyed by the news that he has been selected to represent Scotland in the M35 age group at the fourth coming British XC championships.
Grant passed the baton onto Ross Grant, who came back in fourth place in a time of 14:48, before Jamie Clements took over.
Having recently returned from injury he ran a disappointing 15:15 by his standards, coming back in fifth place. Vincent Hastings, running the final leg, finished in a time of 13:57 and secured fifth place for the ‘A’ team.
The ‘B’ team of Chris White (15:34), David Gorman (15:21), Luke Kirwan (15:22) and Brian O’Neill brought them home in a time of 15:47 to finish some distance off the pace.