Balfron trio star at Celtic Games
Three Balfron girls were on top form at last weekend’s Celtic Games at Grangemouth.
The trio - Coirilidh Cook, Elizabeth Thompson and Anna Cameron - are all members of Central AC with the first two running for Scotland and Anna selected for the Scotland Futures squad.
Fourteen year-old Coirilidh was the star performer.
Making her international debut in the under-16 girls 80m hurdles, the youngster - who is more used to competing at the shorter 75m hurdle distance where she won the Scottish schools title this season - had a difficult start when she slipped out of the blocks but she quickly recovered to overhaul her Welsh and Irish rivals.
There was a late charge by the Irish competitor but Coirilidh held her nerve and the lead to take the win for Scotland by 0.05secs in a superb personal best and club record 11.89.
She then ran in the 4x100m mixed relay along with fellow Central team-mate Daniel Ferguson who had won silver in the under-16 boys 100m hurdles.
In the relay, Coirilidh and Daniel performed well in helping the Scots to victory.
Elizabeth Thompson was competing in her second international in the 4x400m relay. She was running second leg, and with Ireland and Wales choosing to put their top athletes in the first leg she took the baton in third place.
However, she showed her experience as she ran a 59-second leg to close the gap on the other teams from more than five metres to hand over almost level. This allowed her team-mates to overtake the Welsh team in the final leg to finish second behind a strong Irish team.
Anna Cameron won the Scottish Schools long jump earlier this summer with a personal best 5.55m which earned her a place in the Scottish Futures team, selected by the Scottish Schools in addition to the main Scottish team.
She didn’t quite manage to reproduce that form but gained good experience at international level as she jumped 4.99m for fourth and also ran the anchor leg in the 4x100m.
Another Central AC athlete at the meet was Stirling’s Emma Mailer who was defending the under-18 girls 400m hurdles title she won last year.
This time she was up against a strong Irish competitor in Miriam Daly, who had competed at the European Youth Championships earlier this summer and although Emma could not prevent the Irish competitor winning, she took silver in a season’s best 66.41.