A THRILLING day of competition yielded four medals of different colours for Pitreavie AAC athletes.
On January 22, members of the club travelled to Glasgow to compete in the 4J Studios Scottish Athletics National Indoor Senior Under-17 Championships, and returned home to West Fife with four silver and three bronze gongs.
The event, which took place for the first time in two years because of COVID-19, was held at the Emirates Arena and also yielded a number of personal bests for Pitreavie.
Harris Mackie, son of Olympian Ian, who competed in the 100 metres at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, is proving to be a chip off the old block, claiming a fine silver medal in the 200m.
His time of 22.95 seconds saw him finish only behind Dean Patterson (21.47), Scotland's number one-ranked athlete over the distance at that age group, and earn him a well-deserved fourth place in the UK indoor 200m rankings.
Erin Macfarlane, who is now ranked seventh across the UK, took under-17 800m silver with a time of 2:17.99, which just behind Aberdeen AC's Hannah Taylor, who crossed the winning line in 2:16.62.
In the shot put, two Pitreavie competitors – Bruce Robb and Adom Akuoko – reached the podium, winning silver and bronze respectively.
Bruce, who is coached by his father, also a shot-putter, threw an excellent 12.47m to finish just four centimetres behind Kilmarnock Harrier and AC event winner, Logan Mitchell, which moves him to an age group ranking of eighth in the UK for the event, and ninth indoors.
A PB of 11.02m sealed third place for Adom, who, despite qualifying from his first heat in a time of 7.72, missed out narrowly on reaching the 60m final by just thousandths of a second, despite running 0.10 seconds quicker.
Caleb McLeod collected silver in the under-17 triple jump with a leap of 11.01m, 0.68m behind Ayr Seaforth AC's Branden Dunlop, and a bronze in the 400m, where he ran a second quicker to record a new PB of 51.29.
Not only did that make him the second-quickest indoor under-17 male for Pitreavie, it has moved him to seventh in the UK rankings, and fifth for indoor 400m.
There was a well-deserved bronze medal for Holly Gordon, clearing 1.54m in the high jump which, while the same height as gold- and silver-medallists Ellen Macleod (Banchory and Stonehaven Athletics Club), and Ellie Candlish (Dunfermline Track and Field), a run of bad luck with previous attempts being lower than her rivals resulted in a third-place finish.
Rebecca Grieve, who was selected for the 4K Studios National Athletics Academy, was invited to compete in the 400m women's invitational at the national championships, and finished second with a time of 55.33.
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