AIDAN IS NAMES ROOKIEOF THEYEAR
East Kilbride athlete crowned‘Rookie of theYear’
East Kilbrde Athletic Club star Aidan Gilbride has maintained his strong start to his US scholarship by earning a top award.
The 18-year-old, from Lindsayfield, left Scotland for Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire back in August and has hit the ground running with a series of fine performances.
Now, the former Duncanrig Secondary School pupil has picked up the Rookie of the Year award for the New England region.
Aidan competed over 8km at the North East Conference Cross Country Championships in Massachusetts, knowing a strong showing could see him claim the rookie award.
He ran a strong race throughout and featured in the leading group from 155 competitors, eventually finishing in 13th place overall as Franklin Pierce University placed fourth in the team scoring.
Following the race, Aidan was announced by the Conference Committee as their choice for male ‘Rookie of the Year’ after his string of high placed finishes over the cross country season.
This made him the first freshman from his university to ever have won this honour.
That success then gave Aidan a real incentive for his next race, the NCAA East Regional Qualifiers, in which the qualifiers from this event get to participate in the prestigious NCAA Finals, taking place in Tampa, Florida.
This will feature all of America’s most talented young athletes and Aidan will have the opportunity to mix it with them after a strong showing in the 10km qualifiers.
Qualification from this event is the top three teams in the field, but there is also an opportunity for the top three individuals on the day, who are not part of those three qualifying teams, to go forward also.
Aidan’s coach even drafted in the help of a local bagpiper for the day to inspire him and this seemed to be working well as Aidan and two of his colleagues featured prominently in the leading pack for the majority of the race.
Aidan managed to cross the finish line in fifth place overall from the field of 169, in a time of 31 minutes and 50 seconds, to book his place.
However, Franklin Pierce just missed out on securing a team berth for the championships as they placed fourth.
Qualifying for this event as an individual rather than being on a team is a very difficult thing for a freshman to do and after a great few weeks, Aidan said: “It feels incredible.
“To qualify is such a fantastic piece of news and has rounded off a really good first cross country season out here for me, but I am really disappointed for the team to miss out by such a narrow margin
“I know the NCAA Finals will be an incredibly high standard and will be very fast, so I am planning on just going there and enjoying the experience.
“Hopefully, I will learn a lot that can benefit me in the coming years and just run as best as I can.”