October - December 2003
Merry Christmas from AVAC!!
AVAC Training times
Club training resumes for 2004 on Saturday 3rd January at Charles Hill Sports Centre. The running group is hosting two extra sessions over the festive season on Saturday 27th & Tuesday 30th December at Shipley Park, meeting at the visitor centre. 11am start both days - see you there!
AVAC Athlete excels
Alexandra Turner has featured in the U13 girls UK rankings this year (equal 16th according to Athletics Weekly) for her 70m hurdles time of 12.0 seconds. This is a grade 1 performance and particularly impressive as she is in the lower end of the U13 age group.
Mini-League X-country - 7th Dec Holmebrook Valley Park - Chesterfield.
Full results are available on the DCAA website
Once again Amber Valley had a strong turn out in the girls events with a total of 12 girls but only 2 boys (mainly
Sunday football I'm afraid !).
However, the 2 boys who did run continued to perform well with Chris Dawe winning the U11 boys event for the 2nd time and Michael Feeney finishing 2nd in the U13 race.
In the U13 girls race there was the usual battle between Tamara Armoush and Derby AC's Abbey Glover with Tamara leading for most of the race but Abby had the stronger finish on the day. This is the first time any local athlete has beaten Tamara over the country so far this season and so its all to play for in the final race at Charles Hill in January.
Lets make sure we have a good turnout for the last in the series of 3 mini-league races on 25th Jan at Charles Hill when AVAC host the
event (Parent helpers/marshals will be needed !).
A total of 20 Amber Valley
athletes of all ages braved the wind, rain and mud on Saturday 29th November
in the 3rd North Midland X-Country League race at Berry Hill park in
Mansfield. Once again, we were disappointed with the turnout in some age
groups (where were the U11, U15 and U17 boys? - come on lads !) but those
who did compete gave 100%. In the U13 boys we had our
best turn out yet with 5 competitors (all lower end of their age group) with
Michael Feeney and Chris Dawe both finishing in the top 10. Ben Hawkins and
Rory Dickenson (still both relatively new to X-country) finished 19th and
24th with Nicholas Rowton making a solid comeback following illness coming
home in 30th place. For the first time this season
the U13 girls have unfortunately dropped to 2nd place overall in the league
just 1 point behind Kettering but if we can get a full turnout for the final
race in January the girls can still win. All 3 U15 girls had solid runs with
Leila Armoush finishing an excellent 10th (her best position yet this year)
followed by Katie Noonan and Louise Feeney (17th and 18th). Rebecca Herring
was our sole runner in the combined U17/senior/junior ladies race finishing
82nd. AVAC shows it's charitable side Tuesday 25th November saw AVAC donating a cheque
to Cancer Research UK for £200 which was raised at the recent fun day at Charles
Hill. Proceeds from the day were split between AVAC and Cancer Research. Pictured below is Club Chairman Bob Boyd
presenting the cheque to a representative of the charity. Coaches Xmas bash! Following the recent Committee meeting a date was
set for this year's festivities for the adults involved at AVAC. December 20th
will see the town of Belper painted red with a meal followed and preceded by a
swift half or two! Derbyshire Track & Field
Championships, Moorways 15th/16th May. The programme for this years
Derbyshire County Athletic Association Track & Field Championships has been
released. There are a wide range of events
for athletes U13 through to Veterans over two days, the full
programme & entry form can be seen here. Entry
forms must be in by Friday 23rd April so make sure you get yours in early.
Medals are to be awarded to the
first three individuals in each event. Any questions feel free to ask one
of the coaches,
email us or try the DCAA website. New and improved AVAC coaches &
officials! Congratulations to David Feeney, pictured in
action below, who successfully completed his UKA Level 1 Coach Award last week
at Charles Hill, under the careful teaching of our very own Bob Boyd. The award
covers all events, child protection, coaching methods and general safety.
Richard & Ruth Szarkowski can often be seen
assisting at local track and field competitions with the officiating duties, and
have recently completed their UKA Level 3 officiating awards, well done! Derbyshire Mini-League Cross-country, Sunday 23rd November at Moorways, Derby The first of this seasons Derbyshire Mini-League
cross-country events was held on Sunday 23rd November at Moorways in Derby. AVAC
have won this competition the last 2 years running and it is an excellent
opportunity for those athletes new to competition to have a go as well as for
our more established athletes. Despite numerous attempts to make everyone aware
of this event over recent weeks in handouts, newsletter website and
announcements during training the turnout by our boys was a real disappointment
with only one representative in each age group. Come on lads - the girls are
really putting you to shame ! Chris Dawe simply destroyed the opposition in the
U11 boys event with an impressive demonstration of front running eventually
winning by around 100m. In the U13 girls the race was won by Tamara Armoush
(what a surprise !) with Alex Turner close behind in 3rd place. Michael Feeney had a good run finishing in 2nd
place in the U13 boys having put the leader under pressure for much of the race.
In the U15 girls Leila Armoush was in 2nd place for most of the race by was
unfortunately beaten to the finish by a group of Derby girls in a sprint finish
and came home 5th (keep up the speed work Leila). Louise Feeney and Laura Mason
were 6th and 7th followed by Samya Armoush who as an U17 was running as a guest. Clem Allwood was our sole U15 boy
representative running against very stiff opposition from Derby and Chesterfield
to finish 11th. There are 2 more fixtures in this league and we
have a lot of ground to make up if we are to retain our title - you all have
access to the fixture lists so there are no excuses for not knowing about them.
The next Mini-League event is at Holmebrook Valley Park in Chesterfield on
Sunday 7th December but don't forget the 3rd North Midland League race next
Saturday (29th November) at Berry Hill Park - Mansfield - see below. North Midlands Cross Country League Race 3 at Berry Hill Park, Mansfield, Saturday 29th December The third out of four meetings is coming soon. Please be at
Berry Hill by 12.30pm at the latest, or 1.30pm for the U11's. You will need time
to warm up, get familiar with the course, and we need to know who we have for
each event. If you need directions to the park please ask one of the coaches
or
email us. Teams should congregate on the grassed area around the long low
building by the lake. Hot drinks and refreshments are available from the Club
House. U11's should be sporting a Club Vest - there are a few to borrow
on a temporary basis, but they are good value so it may be better to
buy one! AVAC Annual Awards
Evening & Disco Saturday 29th
November 2003, Belper Leisure Centre The Club's annual Awards Evening
will take place shortly at Belper Leisure Centre and tickets are now available.
There will be a bar, buffet food, disco, and presentation of Awards for
Achievement, Grades and Shine Awards to athletes of all age groups. Tickets can be bought from the desk
at training for £2 per athlete or £5 for the family, or on the evening itself. The evening will also host the Grand Prize Draw, with tens of prizes on offer, including a colour television,
portable printer and monitor, chocolates and wines. If you still have any
tickets left to sell please be quick and remember there is a prize for the
athlete who sells the most. Those of you have sold all your tickets are asked to
return the stubs with the monies to training as soon as possible, or on the
evening itself at the latest. We look forward to seeing as many
athletes and parents there on the evening itself, doors open 7.30pm - 11.30pm. Cross Country Mini League Sunday 23rd November at Moorways Stadium, Derby This is an excellent opportunity to compete in this
local Cross Country league, and is ideal for newcomers to the event. Athletes are welcome to compete from age 9 upwards
for males and females, through to U15, with U17's welcome to guest in the U15
race, and the more athletes the better. The first race is at 11am and the last should finish
around 12.30pm. The youngest age group only race over 1km, with the oldest over
4km, so nothing too strenuous! There is a trophy for the overall team winners and
medals for the first three individuals in each age group, so we look forward to
having a strong turnout! All athletes are to meet around the stadium
grandstand just before 11am. Any questions please
email us.
English Cross-Country Relay Championships
Danielle ran 1st leg coping well with the pressure of a
very fast start bringing the team home in 21st position running an excellent
7:55 for the undulating 2km course. Tamara ran a superb 2nd leg in a time of
7:38 steadily ploughing through the field bringing the team up to 6th place
with Alexandra keeping with the pace in a time of 7:48 to maintain 6th
position. The U13 boys also had an excellent race finishing 21st with Michael
Feeney running 1st leg in 7:31 followed by Chris Dawe running 7:47 in his
U13 debut to bring the team up to 15th place with newcomer Rory Dickenson
running a very creditable 8:10 to finish in 21st place. The encouraging
aspect of this team performance is that all 3 boys will still be U13 next
season. Full AVAC Results are:- Sportshall Mini League - Match 2 at Chesterfield. An increased turnout at the second competition in the Mini
League paid dividends for AVAC as the Club just edged the overall points
competition, beating their rivals Chesterfield AC into second place by just five
points. Fine performances on the day included Abby Wood setting a new
County record of 10.50m in the indoor shot and Gareth Griffiths achieving a PB
in the U13 category of the same event with a 7.16m putt. Charlie Waterhouse's
first attempt at the 3 Lap sprint proved successful as he nipped ahead of his
nearest challenger to take first place in the final few yards of the U11 event. The U11 relay teams of Louise Griffiths, Rhiannon Rogers, Amber
Wilde and Jessica Riley for the ladies, and Tom Boyd, David Boddy, Charlie
Waterhouse and Chris Morgan for the gents both achieved first place in
their respective events. A brave performance was also noted by Louise Griffiths who won
the 1 lap event despite injuring her ankle in the process. The injury hampered
her later speed bounce efforts, although her creditable score of 47 was enough
to clinch first place. Carole Eagle paid compliments to her female athletes on the day
- particularly the U13 girls - "these girls are really good at organising their
own events, especially that Alex Turner!", as they allocated their scoring
athletes as seasoned competitors. Full results. League Positions after two matches: 1. Chesterfield 608 2. Amber Valley 585 3. Derby 375
For individual
performances click here. AVAC website reaches 1000 hits barrier! Saturday 8th November saw the 1000th person pay a visit to the
AVAC website, proving it a popular resource. Hopefully the new look is making it
easier to browse and find the pieces of information that interest you. Suggestions and comments regarding style and content are always
welcome, so if there is something you would like to see added to the site,
something is difficult to find, or you find a link that goes nowhere then please
send me an email to let me know. North Midlands Cross Country League - Shipley Park 1st Nov. Amber Valley had a total of 22 athletes competing in the 2nd
NML event at Shipley Park. The strongest team performance was the U13 girls (some of whom
are pictured below) who are now comfortably in the lead despite the fact that
the majority of the girls are in the lower end of this age group. Tamara Armoush
(from Belper) lead for much of the race finishing a close 2nd only 2 seconds
behind the winner from Kettering. Tamara always races with gritty determination
and displays a maturity well beyond her years - a real prospect for the future
given that she was only 11 this summer. A battle for the finish line ensued between Danielle Alldread
(also from Belper) and Derby AC's Abby Glover with Danielle just holding off
Abby's strong challenge to keep 6th position. An illustration of the depth of
talent in this age group at Amber Valley was 11 year old Alexandra Turner
finishing 8th to complete an excellent overall team performance. Amber Valley were also well represented in the U11 fun event
with a total of 6 young athletes competing. Pride of place goes to Chris Dawe
who won the race with a handsome margin in his debut at this event.
Another notable feature of the day were the number of AVAC
athletes in the senior mens race (a total of 5). Most are new to cross country
running and are all parents and/or coaches at the club who have gradually become
more involved via their children. Amer Armoush and Dave Turner are good examples
of dads who are having to step up their fitness levels to stand any chance of
keeping up with their talented daughters who both feature in the U13 girls team! U13 Boys Michael Feeney 9th U15 Girls Leila Armoush - 18th U17/Women Samya Armoush - 94 Senior men Jim Feeney - 109th New Resource for Coaches. The
Athletics Coaches' Association of the UK's website has a new 'resources'
section, accessible from it's homepage containing useful info on training,
equipment and other professional bodies. Click
here to visit Sportshall Mini League - Match 1 at Chesterfield. Over 20 AVAC athletes made the journey to Queens Park Leisure
Centre for the first of six mini league competitions. In an evenly fought
contest Chesterfield AC have just edged the first overall result by 28 points. AVAC were helped by fine performances on the day, in particular
from Abby Wood achieving a new County record with a Putt of 9.62m, and to
Charlie Waterhouse competing in his first Sportshall event for the Club and
claiming a maximum 10 points in two of his three events. Rhiannon Rogers also
performed well to take first place in the U11 Sitting Throw. The U13 girls 4x2 relay team excelled, coming home 3 seconds
clear of their nearest challengers. Also for the U13's Gareth Griffiths' jumping
abilities earned him first place in the Triple & Vertical Jumps. Andrew
Szarkowski put in an excellent time of 39.4 seconds in the U15 4 lap race
to finish in the top spot. A good day was had by all and it was pleasing to see some new
faces to the Sportshall scene, and to competing for the Club in general. The
Club would like as many athletes as possible to take part in these events and
there always spaces available - particularly in the boys teams - so we look
forward to seeing a few more of you on the 9th November for the next
competition. Overall Positions: 1. Chesterfield
304 2. Amber Valley
276 3. Derby
157 Full results can be found by
clicking here. New website One of our athletes has discovered a useful new website from the
BBC called the
Sports
Academy. The site provides 'masterclasses' on some events, interviews with
the stars and news articles - well worth a look! North
Midlands League X-Country event at Markeaton Park I have to say however that overall we had a disappointing turnout
compared with what we expected. Many athletes were unavailable due to
illness, injury or other commitments but, for whatever reason, many simply
chose not to come. We did not have a single runner in the U17 boys,
an incomplete team in the U13 boys and no U11 boys. Hopefully we will
see an improvement in future events.
Click here for the individual performances
Athletes Wanted
Use the links below to browse the rest of the News Archives:
On a positive note there were some excellent performances from those who did run
and a very encouraging turnout of U11 girls with 5 AVAC runners. Well done to
Jessica Riley with an excellent 3rd place closely followed by Amber Wilde
(6th),Sarah Dawe (7th), Tara Ward (8th) and Elspeth Baldwin-Smith (9th).
Group
Amber Valley
Derby
Chesterfield
U11 Boys
60
37
40
U11 Girls
58
24
47
U13 Boys
46
24
59
U13 Girls
55
59
48
U15 Boys
37
16
59
U15 Girls
53
58
51
Overall
309
218
304
Full Amber Valley Results are :-
U11's
Chris Dawe 1st boy
Jessica Riley 4th girl
Tara Ward 6th girl
Amber Wilde 9th
Rosie Blount 10th
Nicholas Rowton 21 st
U13 Girls Tamara Armoush - 2nd
Danielle Alldread - 6th
Alexandra Turner - 8th
Charlotte Noonan - 23rd
U15 Boys Robert Love - 17th
Rickie Kiggins - 22nd
Louise Feeney 26th
Rebecca Herring - 101st
Amer Armoush - 180
Dave Turner - 223
Paul English - 240
Michael Astle - 242
The annual Derbyshire Sportshall Mini League competitions are upon us once
again. Six competitions are held for U11’s, U13’s, & U15’s, at Queens Park
Leisure Centre in Chesterfield once a month. All athletes in the above groups
are encouraged to take part I n these fantastic fun yet highly competitive
events. For the younger athletes this is a great way to begin competing in
athletics if you haven’t done so yet as it includes all the indoor equipment
they already use week in week out.
Remember it is the more the merrier on the day so get those entries in to the
desk at training fast!
Grimsby Open of September 28th.
Some fine individual performances were recorded in one of the last events of the
summer season. Thirteen athletes made the trek to Grimsby for a successful day’s
competition that saw PB’s from Andrew Szarkowski, Josh Cartledge, Nicholas
Rowton and Jordan Martin.
Click here for the individual
performances.