Young Clydesdale Harriers produce excellent form

Aug 8 2008 by Laura McLachlan, Lennox Herald (main ed)

WHILE his teammates were setting the track alight at Linwood last week, Clydesdale Harrier Anton Russell was doing some fire-starting of his own.

The youngster won the under 17s long jump at the Open Graded event – with a fantastic 5.76m jump.

Meanwhile, Cameron McLeod came second in his 100m heat in 12.3s before taking fourth in the 200m in 24.37s.

Rachel Busby had another massive personal best, coming second under 11 in the 1500m in 5:54.19.

In the Snowdon Mountain Running International in Wales last weekend, Harrier Prasad Prasad represented Scotland and finished a respectable 17th of 488 runners and 13th of the 45 internationals in a time of 1:16:00 for the ten-mile trail.

In scorching hot conditions, Prasad started well, and despite a dip in the middle, managed to overcome the pain of a severe blister to fight back towards the end.

Johnathan Farrell won his 90m heat at the Airth Highland Games, but unfortunately only managed a third place finish in the semi-final.

However, the Harrier made up for it in the 200m – managing to win his heat and finish fourth in the final.

Then he rounded his day off with a performance on the relay team.

The next day Farrell took part in no fewer than seven events at Luss Games, and finished in the top five in them all.

He was fourth in the 90m, third in the Invitation 90m, fifth in the 200m final, fifth in the 400m, third in the long jump, third in the high jump and fourth in the triple jump.

The previous week at Balloch the young athletes relay teams were first and second, with the winning team being Rachel Busby, Mark Busby, Chloe Wright and Tony Dolan.

The second team was Lewis Wood, Mirren Wright, Kirsty Kelly and Rachel Alexander.

Meanwhile, Johnathan Farrell had two third places – one in the 80m Scottish Championship and one in the 90m open race.

In the Youths 800m, Tony Dolan was fourth, Rachel Busby fifth, Chloe Wright sixth and Kirsty Kelly seventh.

In the Youths 200m, Rachel was fourth with Mirren sixth in the same heat, while Chloe was fourth with Mark sixth in the second heat.