Competing against big-hitting clubs including the home side, Basingstoke, MADJA finished on 271 points, way behind Basingstoke (518) and Team Kennet (447) but narrowly ahead of Salisbury (256) and Slough Juniors (242) (writes Ben Tarring)
With many MADJA athletes absent due to exams, the team was noticeably light in some areas: Millie O’Connor was the only woman representing the club at U17 level.
MADJA’s boys and men competed strongly at all age groups. The U17 team of Will Seward, Luke Callaghan, Patrick Maloney, Ben Holland, Alex Painting, Thomas Hamill and David Cope amassed 74 points and came second.
Notable performances came from Seward, who won the discus with a throw of 34.27m and was second in the javelin with 42.29m, and Painting, who came joint first in the high jump with 1.60m.
Peter Booten and Alex Davies led the way for the U15s, with javelin throws of 35.60m and 31.04m respectively. Elliott Lassiter claimed second spot in the 1500m with a time of 04:57.8, while a time of 59.60 earned Oscar Bruce second place in the 400m.
James Eyles starred for the U13s: his discus throw of 20.28m was a grade 3 performance. In the 800m, Rory Clark came second in the 800m in 02:33.8, a grade 4 performance.
The standout performance for the girls was Gemma Shepherd’s win in the 800m in a grade 2 time of 02:21.0. Ashlen Sowerby threw 6.65m in the shot, coming second.
In the parallel QuadKids competition for U11s, MADJA came fourth, with 1,297 points, behind Slough Juniors, Team Kennet and Basingstoke, and ahead of Salisbury. Oliver Rhoads and Thomas Holmes were the top two boys and Jesse Ford and Tess Mayer the top two girls. Poppy Davies broke the MADJA club record in the Vortex with a throw of 26.18m, nearly two metres more than the record, set last year by Bethany Palfrey.
Photo by Neil Goodwin
