BRECON athletic clubs hosted the welsh regional championships on the Saturday at their Penlan Track.
An abundance of warm sunshine and medals was the order of the day with athletes competing across all the age categories from U13 to seniors. Brecon athletes obtained New personal bests and standards for automatic qualification into the Welsh Championships in June.
In the U13s Patrick Deveney Billinge won the 800m for East wales and Iwan Coyle took second in the 1500m; Tomas Davies ran well to come fourth in the same race.
U13 girls Carys Wheeler and Riley Mcloughlin both posted new personal bests in the 800m with 2:58.05 and 3:12.57 respectively. Also for the u13 girls Lenani Gethin qualified for the 100m final and came in fifth.
The U15 boys and girls had a storming day with Harvey Parsons picking up three medals one of each colour in the high jump, pole vault and hurdles, Rhys Peters also picked up a gold medal in the pole-vault.
On the track Ewan Dykes stormed in to take medals in the 200m and 300m and Sion Coyle ran an exceptional 3000m to place first for east wales, he later took home a bronze medal in the long jump final.
Out in the field events Llyr Thomas, Kyle Davies and James Williams were busy putting their training into practice and all came away with an array of medals of in the discus, javelin, shot and hammer.
U15 duo Mia Coackham and Skyla Holman jumped well the keenly contested high jump competition and gained valuable experience of high level competition in their 100m /200m heats. Glesni Powell gave her best in the 800m and kept with the pack right up until the final dash for the line placing fourth overall.
Elsewhere the rest of the U15 girls were storming through their 100 and 200m heats; both Paige Ballington and Willow Ransome posted new pbs and well as going onto to medal in the 100m, 200m and 300m finals, just rewards for their preseason weeks of training.
The older athletes in the U17s and U20s were revelling in the sunshine with some cracking performances, Jacob Williams showed his class in the hammer and shot putt competitions and with welsh record holder George Thomas posting a sub 50 second 400m and a 22.71 for his 200m both boys were assured gold medals position in their events. Fellow sprinter Matt Cattrall also took a break from exam revision to finish on the rostrum with a gold in the U20 400m and silver in the 100m.
In the middle distance races the Price-Davies brothers raised their own achievements to new heights with both coming away with medals in the 1500m and Brynchan going on to romp home in a new personal best time of five minutes two seconds and gold in the 1500m steeplechase.
Fellow U17 teammate Sophie Mathews made the finals of the 20m and went on to pick up a silver medal in this event and well as the long jump. Specialist race walker Jordan Price left the rest of field trailing in his wake to take the gold medal in the 1500m race walk.
U20 Megan Tucker did the though double of competing in both the 800m and 1500m in which she picked up two gold medals, she was joined in the 800m by Megan Johnstone who ran in half a second behind Megan and a silver medal.
In the senior men’s events Owen Chesher walked away with gold in the high jump with a jump of 1.85m and Coming back from a long enforced absence, Paul Evans was pleased to clinch silver medals in the long jump and 200m.
Charlie Northey finished his day with a medal of each colour in the triple jump, javelin and 800m so it was the regional championships proved to be a highly successful one for the all clubs’ athletes who are so lucky to have such superb track and field facilities on their doorstep.
It what is a very busy summers fixture list the club now looks forward to hosting the second in the road race series on May 24.