Promoting Athletics in Orkney

Orkney Athletic and Running Club

3 days ago

OARC Garden Square Home Championships

Today’s Garden Square Home Championships represented another milestone in a golden age of Orkney men’s sprinting. These isles have produced some magnificent sprinters over the years, but never before the sheer depth of lightning fast talent on show today. A week on from breaking the Orkney 200m senior record, Bobby Harcus ran 11.20s, inside his brother Connor’s 100m record: the only problem was that 17 year-old Max Tulloch was a further hundredth of a second ahead of him in 11.19s, and both will be driven on by Shetland’s Kian Redman returning to the Picky track where he made the Island Games final last year and running his second legal time below 11 seconds of 10.97s to take gold in an incredibly high calibre race where Gerard Enemmuo in fourth also ran a highly impressive PB of 11.34. The record was fourth time lucky for Max, having run below the record three times previously in wind-illegal conditions.

Aside from that, the main talking point of the day will be the short burst of near-monsoon level rain over lunchtime which split a day of otherwise glorious sunshine and caused a delay in track proceedings and on the long jump - but not on the javelin who are clearly made of sterner stuff and continued throwing even as the rain came down harder and harder. Well done to all the athletes involved for recording some fantastic performances in conditions that would be hard to replicate outside of practicing in the shower! Scarlett Hoque managed to equal her PB of 23.28m set at last year’s Championships, while William MacDonald threw 47.49m in competition and then 49.48m with with extra throws to record two SBs in one afternoon. Earlier in the day in more amenable conditions, Archie Drever took the gold medal in the U14B javelin by just 1cm from James Cursiter: 14.35m to 14.34.

The most impressive high jump performances came from the U12s where Elin Scott and Robyn Begley had an incredible battle as both sailed past the previous U12 record of 1.24m: Elin went through with minimal fuss, with only one failure on her way up to 1.27m compared to Robyn having to dig much deeper with six failures by that point. When the bar went up to 1.29 though, Robyn got over at the second attempt and improved on her own record. Elsewhere, Gerard Enemmuo was the highest jumper of the day with a 1.76m PB, one of seven amongst the nine jumpers alongside Robyn, Elin, Libby, James, Millie and Tyler.

The long jump pit was busy all day with 33 athletes taking part and impressive performances throughout. Drew Miller’s 5.66m was the longest of the day. Sophie Shearer’s 4.70m was the longest in the U14G category, but Brooke Learmonth’s impressive 4.52m pushed her very close and was a near 50cm PB, the third longest jump on the day behind Sophie and Lizzie Harcus’ 4.53m PB.

We saw plenty of personal bests in the shot put, with gold medals for Annie (U16G) and Ruby Bruce (U14G) in their respective categories and a huge PB of 6.50m for Nicol Learmonth in his U14B category, adding almost a metre to his previous best. A throw of 6.11m took Mason Budge to U12B gold and a new Orkney U12 record - the only field record of the day. Lizzie Harcus led the way for the older throwers with a PB of 9.24m in taking U18 women’s gold.

There were plenty of highlights from the track as well, with the stunning senior men’s record being joined by several age group 100m records in being broken: Mason Budge won the U12B gold with a new record of 15.22s, almost half a second off his previous best, whilst Robyn Begley won U12G in 15.37s, which would also have been a new record but for the only illegal wind recording of the day. Sophie Shearer took another gold and another Orkney record in the U14G, finishing in 13.51s while Davy Tulloch (14.15s) narrowly held off visiting Livingston athlete Lewis Sharp to win the U14B gold. A big PB of 12.61s was enough for Tristan Hoque to win amongst the U16B, while Kathryn Moar took U16 gold in 13.32s. The women’s U18/U20 final was a close one, won by Freya Kemp in 13.08s.

In the 800m, Annie Bruce took a second gold with a winning time of 2:51.24s while Freddie Brown put in an incredibly impressive time of 2:57.93 at U12B. Livingston’s Finlay Sharp (U18M) was the fastest athlete of the day in 2:09.83 while Lillie Giggle-Bain recorded a time of 2:20.69.

Then came the rain delay and the 200m runners lined up on a track that was literally steaming as the sun burnt off large amounts of standing water, creating a very atmospheric environment for Ingrid Hepburn (U10G), Oliver Croy (U12B), Elin Scott (U12G), Sophie Shearer (U14G), Davy Tulloch (U14B), Tristan Hoque (U16B), Kathryn Moar (U16G), Freya Kemp (U18W), Kian Redman (U18M), Millie Dennison (U20W) and Bobby Harcus (Senior men) to storm to their respective golds in. Sophie and Oliver improved on their own respective age group records.

Over 400m, Drew Miller was the fastest of three U18M finishers in 53.58 whilst the U16G 300m was won by Kathryn Moar in 44.56s.

Finlay Risbridger took 20 seconds off his 1500m record in finishing in 4:32.55, holding off Craig Moar and Adam Hough before the final event of the day, the 5000m. The field of 10 included a 64 year age gap between the oldest competitor, 80 year-old Ian MacDonald and the youngest, 16 year-old Henry Hough. Truly an event for all ages! Gary Ward was the first finisher in 17:42.21 with Vikki Budge first female with a PB of 19:36.02. Perhaps the most impressive age grade performance of the day was Malcolm Hammond finishing in a PB of 21:19.03, a great time at any age but outstanding when you consider Malcolm turns 76 in a few weeks time. Ian MacDonald was loudly cheered home as the final finisher of the day in a time of 30:55.07, creating a new V80 record.

Thank you to all the competitors, volunteers and officials, particularly the large number helping for the first time. This is the first competition we’ve held without Aly MacPhail’s presence in I don’t know how long and everyone coped brilliantly. Thank you to our sponsors Garden Square and the OIC Sports and Leisure’s Summer of Sport programme for your generous support, and thank you to Taylah (and Lar#SummerOfSportting the medals and to Julian Preston for coming to take the fantastic pictures below.

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