Long Calderwood pupils are relay good sports

Mar 2 2009

  Long Calderwood Primary School has won the annual South Lanarkshire Sportshall Athletics competition, narrowly beating Machanhill Primary School into second place by just six points.

And hot on their heals was Burnside Primary School which made it a double bronze, lifting the third-place spot for the second year running.

Long Calderwood, which had won this event in 2006, were out to prove they were still at the top when it comes to indoors team based athletics. They had already shown that they would be a force to be reckoned with this year when they dominated the East Kilbride area event a few weeks ago, winning convincingly by a margin of more than 30 points over nearest rivals Kirktonholme Primary.

Following area finals held in January, eight primary school teams, representing the four areas of South Lanarkshire, descended on the finals, which were held at the John Wright Sports Centre in East Kilbride last week.

Each school put forward their best performers to compete in the 10 track and eight field events. The competition was very tight throughout the day and, going into the final relay, only one point separated East Kilbride's Long Calderwood and Larkhall's Machanhill.

Councillor Gerry Convery, the chair of South Lanarkshire Leisure Ltd, said: "This is a marvellous programme for very young children, giving them a useful introduction to a range of athletics events adapted to suit them. We feel this widens the scope of sports available to our youngsters and hope that this will encourage more and more children to take up athletics.

"It is especially exciting this year as Lanarkshire recently succeeded in its bid to host the International Children's Games in 2011 so it would be wonderful if some of our young pupils participating in these events go on to compete at the 'mini Olympics' in two years time."

Sportshall Athletics is very much a 'fun athletics' approach to competition which provides the opportunity for young people to participate in a modified version of track and field athletics.

This is an indoor-based activity which allows budding athletes the chance to try athletics as part of a team. The overall aim is to introduce athletics to young pupils and hopefully encourage them to take up the sport and join a club.

The teams have to compete in standing long jump, vertical jump, speed bounds and chest push. Each team enters two athletes in each event and the cumulative distance achieved by the athletes counts towards the school's total. The track events are all relays, which allow the participants to develop a team spirit during their training.

Long Calderwood and Machanhill will now represent South Lanarkshire on Wednesday 11 March in the West of Scotland Sportshall Athletics Finals which is being hosted this year by South Lanarkshire Leisure at John Wright Sports Centre. They will compete against the best teams from Glasgow, East Ayrshire, West Dumbartonshire, North Ayrshire and Inverclyde