Amy’s on a high after bronze win
Jumper has a bright future
Central AC high jumper Amy Gullen was on form as she leapt to an excellent bronze medal at the Scottish national indoor championships at Glasgow’s Emirates Arena on Sunday.
The 19 year-old from Muckhart came into the event confident after clearing 1.66m at the national open two weeks ago – her best for three years.
She put herself in contention with first-time clearances at 1.54m and 1.59m, and then cleared 1.64m at the first attempt to confirm her place in the top three.
The bar was then raised to 1.69m which would have been a new personal best and club record height. Amy had three good attempts and in the last one looked like she was well clear of the bar only to knock it off with her heel.
This meant she had to settle for bronze but with gold and silver going to athletes from Ireland and England she had the consolation of being the top-placed Scot.
Afterwards, Amy said: “I know the big jump is there, it all just needs to click into place.”
She is looking to broaden her horizons with competitions in Europe to give her further opportunities and will hopefully be competing in Spain next. Hopefully through these she can find that 1.70m-plus jump that she showed she has potential to do.
Central had several under-20 age group athletes moving up an age group to test themselves out against the top seniors. Kate Gallagher from Stirling is no stranger to top-level competition, having regularly represented Scotland at school and junior level. In the senior 1500m she found herself up against GB internationals Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie but held her form for fifth place in 4.37.90 – a personal best which also broke the club indoor under-20 record that had stood since 1996.
Balfron teenager Anna Cameron was also on personal best form as she finished in a respectable sixth place in the long jump with a new best jump of 5.29 to go third on the club indoor all-time list. This was after a respectable 8.26 in the 60m.
Fellow Balfron athlete Matt Chandler leapt to a season’s best 6.42m for seventh while Andrew Sweeney and Kieran Halliday were contesting the sprints. Andrew ran 23.94 in the 200m to just miss out on a place in the semi-final while Kieran ran 24.95 after 7.80 in the 60m.