Promoting Athletics in Orkney

Orkney Athletic and Running Club

2 days ago

𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫-𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭
𝘔𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘢 𝘤𝘶𝘱 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘦𝘢, 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯𝘦!

Sunday’s Orkney Junior Inter-County Athletics competition was one for the ages: packed with drama and fantastic performances from beginning to end. As co-captain Lucy mentioned in her words afterwards, Orkney felt like underdogs going into the competition after Shetland won in 202 and we had a lot of excellent athletes age out after last year - the 2026 team was missing Emily McArthur, Jamie Sutherland, Max Linklater, Connor Harcus and Abi Coltherd who have been the bedrock of the athletics squad for years. Nine of Orkney’s team still qualify for the U16 age group and one for the U14s, and these weren’t the reserves - 8 out of those 10 competed at least once yesterday and acquitted themselves brilliantly.

Shetland had plenty of talented young athletes of their own, but on paper, based on pre- competition PBs, Orkney would have been 9 points down going into the relays. In reality they were 2.5 down, just close enough to set up the dramatic comeback we saw. But more on that later!

First up were the two 800m races: Eli and Finlay running for the boys and Elsie and Annie for the girls. The boys race saw Eli and Finlay against two excellent older athletes in Shetland’s captain Jake Crossan and Lewis Black. Both fought brilliantly and Eli in particular stayed on the shoulder (or given the height difference, perhaps the hip) of both Shetland athletes all the way round to finish a close third with Finlay fourth. Both Eli and Finlay set PBs, Eli by almost eight seconds: it was to be the start of an incredible run of personal bests for Orkney athletes. They also pushed their Shetland counterparts hard, with both also running PBs to secure the top two spots. Shetland 3.5 - 1.5 Orkney.

The girls 800m saw Elsie sit on the shoulder of Shetland’s Reeta Moncrieff until the final stages of the race where she kicked hard and pulled away to take Orkney’s first win of the day in a near-6 second PB time of 2:23.45. Reeta finished second, whilst Annie Bruce pulled off something truly special to finish third, knocking almost 22 seconds off her 800m personal best to grab Orkney 1pt rather than 0.5 and deliver a 1pt swing - the first of many moments on the day that you look back at as being crucial when you know how tight things would be at the end. It’s great to celebrate the wins - and Elsie delivered a brilliant one - but the JIC scoring system is all about racking up those seconds and thirds in every event to build your total. Shetland 5.5 - 4.5 Orkney.

The first field event was the boys’ long jump and this was dominated by Drew Miller, whose frankly heartstopping landing technique (generally flat on his back) didn’t counteract the incredible pace he was hitting the board at, launching himself out to a PB of 5.70m with his first jump. In fact all four boys jumped furthest - and all PBs - with their first jumps, with Tyler Budge landing 5.32, a 35cm best, to finish third. Shetland 7.5 - Orkney 7.5

Over at the girls high jump, overall JIC co-captain Jenna Scott put a perfect card together through to a winning height of 1.5m, before narrowly failing in three attempts at a PB of 1.56m. Earlier, Kathryn Moar has cleared 1.35m to take fourth, with Hazel and Roma for Shetland clearing 1.40 and 1.45m respectively. That meant that the teams were locked in a dead heat through four events. Shetland 10 - Orkney 10.

In the 200m, both Orkney pairs saw late changes with Orrin Dick and Millie Dennison stepping in for Gerard and Freya (who was busy with the physio after taking a few hits playing hockey a few hours earlier!). Throughout the day, we saw quite a few replacements, showing the value of having reserves as part of the selection and those reserves training hard right up to the day. Thank you to all of our reserves this year, whether you stepped in to compete at the last minute or supported the team throughout, we couldn’t have done it without you all.

The boys race was exceptionally fast, with Kian Redman breaking his own JIC Electronic Record (set last year) to finish in 22.19 in first and Max Tulloch setting a new Orkney U18 record in 22.8s in second. Max was injured in this event in 2025, so a real positive to come back on this stage and do so well. Orrin’s 24.43 was enough to clinch third from Bo Henry, meaning another tied event: Shetland 12.5 - Orkney 12.5.

Shetland edged ahead in a mightily close girls race, with Faye Clark taking first in 27.30 from Nuala Webb’s 27.59, with Merrin Stemp third in 27.70 and Millie Dennison recording a PB of 28.51 as a last minute replacement. Shetland 15.5 - Orkney 14.5.

Then came the first throws events: boys javelin and girls shot put. The javelineers for Orkney were Jamie Milne and Woody Monkman, Woody throwing the heavier 700g javelin in competition for the first time. Both excelled themselves, with Woody surpassing his PB, set at a lighter weight by 2.5m to finish fourth, with Jamie coming into the competition with a sub-20m PB sending all four of his attempts beyond 28m and his furthest out to 33.33m, showing his enormous potential as a thrower with a few technical improvements. Shetland’s James Leask threw the winning javelin of 37.82m, with all four of his attempts being over 36m. Shetland 18.5 - Orkney 16.5.

Over at the shot put circle, Millie’s 200m warm up had clearly paid off as she launched her second throw out to 10.04m, her first time in double figures and enough to take the win. This year the girls were throwing new weights in line with the national U18 age group, so Millie will be winaugural JIC record holder in this event. Lizzie Harcus also threw a PB, this time with her final throw: this took her into third place by 1cm and is another one of those marginal moments where a third rather than a fourth meant that Orkney were in striking distance at the end of the event. Shetland 20.5 - Orkney 19.5.

400m was up next, and Drew Miller showed no noticeable ill effect from his long jump crash landings earlier in the afternoon in taking more than a second and a half off his PB to streak home in 53.21, more than two seconds clear of second place Lewis Black. Christopher Joos on JIC debut also recorded a near 1s PB to finish fourth. Shetland 23 - Orkney 22.

In the girls race, Kathryn Moar was within inches of a win in her first competitive 400m, finishing in an excellent time of 62.93, half a second behind Annie Williamson of Shetland who is ranked 15th nationally in this event who won the race. Abby Harcus of Shetland was third, whilst Jorgi Craigie continued her unusual pattern of competing in a different event in every JIC (after high jump in 2024 and 1500m in 2025) by stepping in as the reserve and finishing with a very creditable time of 72.34. A true team player. Shetland 26 - Orkney 24 at the half way stage.

Boys high jump was next and the first sighting of co-captain Gerard Enemmuo - sailing through the air to jump a PB of 1.75m at the second attempt and then have two cracks at 1.80m before perhaps wisely deciding to save his energy for the sprints to come. Gerard had been confirmed as the winner since 1.66m when Aiden and Shetland’s Ryan Drakeford both dropped out of the competition in equal second, causing a bit of confusion in the scoring team: in the case of a dead heat, both participants receive the points of the shared place, in this case 1.5pts, meaning that Orkney took 3.5 from this event and Shetland 2. Shetland 28 - Orkney 27.5 overall.

In the long jump pit, Shetland’s Eva Thompson, bronze medalist in the Island Games long jump last year, showed her class in jumping 4.98 and 4.99 with her two legal jumps - and what looked like a good deal further with one of her narrowly over the board ones. The Orkney girls were not overawed though and split the event with second and third place finishes: Sophie Shearer leapt out to 4.92 with her final attempt to set not just an U14 Orkney record but an U16 one too - at just 12 years old, Sophie has a lot of JIC years to come and this was something of a marker set down! Lizzie Harcus had a run of bad luck with the wind gauge - three of her four attempts were wind illegal while every other jump in the competition was fine - but still jumped 4.58m to finish third and recorded a 4.45 PB with her one legal jump. Shetland’s Morgan Taylor jumped 4.28 with her final jump to secure a creditable fourth. Shetland 30.5 - Orkney 30.

Next up was the 100m and - regrettably - a short, sharp storm which came down to heavily dampen proceedings, if not spirits. The accompanying gusts meant that the boys 100m to follow was narrowly wind illegal, with the girls narrowly legal, the wind promoting fast times but probably only cancelling out being soaked through as an advantage!

The boys were up first and yet again it was Kian v Max at the front with the Shetlander storming to an unbelievable time of 10.9s which would have taken half a second off his own JIC record with a slightly lower breeze. Max’s 11.1s would have broken the Orkney senior record as well, and Gerard’s 11.33 in third would have been extremely competitive. Overall we were very lucky with the weather over the weekend, but it let us down there! Shetland 33 - Orkney 32.5

With the wind a fraction lower, the girls 100m was wind legal, and all four girls took advantage to record PBs: Shetland’s Eva Thomson broke the JIC Electronic record in a time of 12.73 and Freya Kemp for Orkney in second would have tied the previous record if it hadn’t just been broken with her time of 12.81s. Faye Clark edged Nuala Webb in a photo finish separated by 0.01s to take third. Shetland 36 - Orkney 34.5.

Then we were back to the field for the final time for the girls javelin and boys shot. On the shot, Murray Robertson, who has been at school south on his rugby scholarship, showed his raw power with a huge second throw of 12.33, clearly of Lief Stronach’s 11.89 in second, Kristian Poleson’s 10.39 in third and Jamie Milne’s 9.50m PB in fourth. Shetland 38.5 - Orkney 37.

In the girls javelin, we had one of the few events Orkney were clearly favoured in before the competition began, with co-captain Lucy Kenyon and Alaina Dearness holding clear PB advantages over the Shetland competitors Shannon and Abigail. It didn’t look like that through the first three throws though, with Abigail leading from a big PB on her second throw of 29.05m, Alaina in second with 27.00m and Lucy having a foul and two sub-27m throws against her name. Commeth the hour, commeth the captain though as her fourth and final attempt sailed out beyond the 30m mark to 30.97, clinching Orkney another vital half point and narrowing the gap. Shetland 40.5 - Orkney 40.

The 1500m was the final individual track event, with Shetland clinching a 1-2 in the boys event through Jake Crossan and Theo Thomason. Eli did a fantastic job of sticking with them for the first three laps of the race but they pulled away in the final 200m, both picking up PBs, as did Finlay in fourth. Shetland 44 - Orkney 41.5.

In the girls race, it was Elsie vs Reeta again, but this time Elsie set the pace and led from start to finish in an impressively commanding performance, finishing in 5:03.25, with Reeta and Georgie Moncrieff second and third to split the points and Annie Bruce contributing the final half point of the individual competition.

Shetland 46.5 - Orkney 44 going into the relays: assuming both teams got the baton round, the 2.5 - 1pt scoring in place for the relays meaning that there was a 1.5 point swing available for each, meaning that Orkney could still take the overall win with two victories, but Shetland needed to win only one to take the Ian Williamson trophy.

The boys were up first: Orrin Dick got Orkney off to a fast start and by the time Gerard Enemmuo had handed over to Drew Miller in third, Orkney had a significant lead. With no Kian Redman available to Shetland, Max Tulloch on Orkney’s anchor leg was the fastest athlete in the field so it was all about a clean changeover which Drew made, leaving Max to fly down the home straight to the rapturous cheers of the home crowd, crossing the line in 44.52, a new JIC electronic record. Shetland 47.5 - Orkney 46.5

So it was all down to the final race of the day, the girls 4x100m relay. Through two legs it was neck and neck, Kathryn and Nuala having equalled Yvonne and Faye’s efforts. Next, the baton went on to JIC overall captain Jenna Scott and she put the burners on to pull Orkney clear on the third leg and hand over to Freya Kemp with a second or so advantage. Freya didn’t need it though, surging down the track as the noise level rose, crossing the line in 50.49, another new electronic JIC record for the Orkney relay teams and one that secured the Ian Williamson cup, putting Orkney ahead for the first time all afternoon by the smallest of margins: Orkney 49 - Shetland 48.5.

After celebrations on the track with the team and their families, the Athletics trophy was presented to Lucy and Gerard by Inga Linklater, and the team crowded onto the Picky balcony to receive their medals and lift the trophy. Incredible drama, incredible performance and incredible competition.

Of the 36 individual Orkney performances on the day, 24 were personal bests, 4 were first time over this distance or with this weight and 2 more would have been PBs but for an illegal wind. 30/36 were the athletes best ever efforts in the event. Yesterday was a story of a team rising to meet a challenge and reaching incredible new heights on the JIC stage: Shetland Amateur Athletics Club played their part as well with at least 15 PBs on their side as well as two new JIC records. The teams were so closely matched that we only had two 1-2 finishes for the same team all day. As ever, these two teams brought the best out of eachother in the spirit of friendly competition, and we’re incredibly lucky to have this event in the calendar every year to look forward to.

Congratulations to all the participants in this years JIC, thank you to our friends from Shetland for running so close. Thank you to everyone who helped put the day on, all the officials, volunteers, Alice Tait, Kirsten Miller & David Delday on the balcony announcing and keeping us going with music throughout the afternoon, to George from Rohallion Orkney for the livestream and for everyone who came down to support. Thank you in particular to Aly MacPhail, Susan Rendall, Diane Gordon and Jamie Sutherland for their hard work in advance of the day to make sure everything ran as smoothly as it did.

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