Lewis sprints to medal glory

Feb 14 2008

HAMILTON sprinter Lewis Gibb is setting the pace for his age group, following the Bank of Scotland Championships at Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall.

Lewis (14), took gold in the under-15 60m, and silver in the 200m, breaking his personal best time twice on the way by running 24.28 in his heat and 24.19 in the final.

The Hamilton Grammar pupil is top of his age group in Scotland at 60m and 200m level, and now fourth overall in the UK. He has already broken his ‘Power of 10 100’ target of 24.20 for the season.

That also qualifies Lewis for a place in next year’s scottishathletics Talented Athletes Squad.

This remarkable success comes hot on the heels of another silver medal success at Thursday’s Scottish Schools’ Under-16 event, where he finished only 4/100ths of a second behind the winner.

Motherwell Athletics Club runner Lewis blazed a trail by winning his heat in 7.49 seconds and his semi-final in 7.40 secs, before running 7.41 secs in the final.

His semi-final time is another PB and and puts Lewis second overall in the UK under-15 rankings. In addition he has scooped the 10 fastest times in Scotland for his age group, as no other runner has finished in under 7.60 seconds.

Proud dad Robert said: “I was frankly gob-smacked by how good Lewis was on Saturday, particularly his performance in the 200m because it was totally out of the blue. Lewis hadn’t been doing all that well at 200m but just decided that he was going to run at full pace and he was amazing.

“By working really hard with Bob McCrumb at Motherwell Athletics Club, Lewis has taken about a second off his 200m time in the last two months.”

Club member Mhairi Hendry (11), a pupil at Hamilton’s Chatelherault Primary, struck gold in the under-13 800m event on Saturday, with a heat time of 2.33.87. She’s ranked No. 1 in Scotland and fifth in the UK at her age group event in the Power of 10 tables.

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