The 2008 English Schools Track and Field Championships took place at Gateshead Stadium over the weekend, with four hours of coverage broadcast live by Sky TV.
Andover had three athletes representing Hampshire Schools, the most they have had for many a year and all three were making their first appearance at what is arguably, for the Junior and Intermediate age groups, the top track and field event of the year.
Clare Paterson (Clere) was selected for the Intermediate Girls 100m and was also part of the 4x100m relay team.
Dan Grinham (John Hanson) has shown phenomenal improvement in his 800m performance this year. Also a highly talented footballer with Oxford City, Dan was nearly two seconds inside the Junior Boys 800m qualifying time. Finally, Gary Jones (Winton) is an established hammer thrower with a personal best of over 48m making him one of the top throwers in the UK for his age.
Dan Grinham was the first up on the Friday, making his debut in the Junior Boys' 800m heats, and is often the case, the first two heats were slower than the final two. Dan took up the gauntlet and despite running yet another personal best could only manage sixth place and so just missed out on semi-final qualification.
Competing in the middle of the field was Gary Jones who was aiming for a podium position in the Junior Boys' Hammer and on paper this certainly seemed a great possibility. However, the swirling wind conditions and rain made throwing conditions very difficult and varied.
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His best throw of 44.70, although still at National Standard level and therefore a very good throw, was well short of his best, so he will have been a little disappointed with his ninth position overall. However, Gary has many more years at this schools event ahead of him and is destines to achieve great things. Back on the track Clare Paterson had a very busy schedule with her goal to progress through the 100m heats to the finals. Clare is bottom age so has done extremely well to qualify and running in the third heat of four, she posted a pb of 12.41 to come third and gain automatic qualification for the semi-finals.
Having run her heart out in the morning, she was back in the afternoon for the semis and although her time of 12.51 was a little slower than in her heat, it saw her through to the finals as the first fastest loser. Her final was during the Sky coverage and she was the only one of the three to make a TV appearance where she again came very close to her new pb, finishing seventh in a time of 12.42 - a brilliant achievement.
However, her championships were not over as the sprint team had qualified for the finals of the 4x100m relay. Clare was on the first leg and went off well, with the team narrowly missing out on the bronze medal, finishing fourth in 49.15.
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