Three Skyrac A. C. athletes represented West Yorkshire against 49 other regions at the Grand Final of the Millennium Youth Games. These were held in Southampton over a 3 days period and in the Year 8 Athletics competition, West Yorkshire came an overall 2nd place behind Wales.

This excellent result was aided by 2 tremendous performances from 2 of Skyrac's 13 year old athletes. Amy Howard was the overall winner of the Girls' Discus, with the magnificent throw of 33.99m. Andrew Staniland was the overall silver medalist in the 80m Hurdles, with a personal best time of 12.4s. Both Amy and Andrew were competing against 98 other athletes in each event!

Amy also helped West Yorkshire's points tally with 4.36m in the Long Jump, 13.2s in the 75m Hurdles and in the Medley Relay. Andrew was also in good form in the Discus with 28.59m, the Long Jump (5.00m) and was part of the

overall 4th placed 4x100m Relay team (50.6s).

Faye McKenzie completed Skyrac's trio with 3 impressive performances in the Long Jump (4.37m), 100m (13.1s) and the Shot Putt (8.32m).

Meanwhile at the Terry Davies Memorial Meeting at Warrington's Victoria Park Stadium, Skyrac,s Bethany Staniland dominated the Under 13 Girls, age group, coming home with four gold plaques and a bronze one.

The golds were achieved when she won the 800m (2mins.34.2s), the 200m (29.7s), the Javelin (24.90m) and the Discus (26.10m).

These latter three events were all personal best performances with the Discus being a A.A.A. Grade 1 National Standard. She was also 3rd in the Shot Putt, but was a little below her best with 7.77m.

The final meeting of the West Yorkshire Track and Field League was held at the Princess Marys Stadium, Cleckheaton and four Skyrac athletes finished the season in trophy position.

Pride of place goes to two 12 year-old athletes, Bethany Staniland and Matthew Hudson. Bethany was the run away winner of the Under 13 Girls League, 35 points ahead of the second placed athlete, having scored highly throughout the season in all the 800m races, the 70m Hurdles and in every field event.

Matthew was impressive in the sprints, the 75m Hurdles and field events.

The Club also enjoyed two individual second places from K. Kerley in the Under 11 Boys age group and from multi eventer, Andrew Staniland, in the Under 15 Boys category.

This latter performance is all the more impressive since Andrew will be in the same age group next year. Overall Skyrac finished second in the League behind the powerful Wakefield Harriers and AC.

The following day Lincoln Wellington AC held their annual open meeting at Yarborough Stadium and the usual pair of travelling Skyrac girls enjoyed another very successful day of track and field athletics.

In the Under 15 Girls competition, Amy Howard came home with two gold medals and a silver one. Despite still being a junior Under 15, Amy won the 200m in 28.4s and the Long Jump with 4.53m.

She then putted 8.67m in the Shot for second place. Bethany Staniland won both her Under 13 Girls' events, taking the

600m in 1min 50.8s and then setting a personal best in the Shot Putt with the AAA Grade 1 performance of 8.82m.

One Skyrac athlete raced against the nation's best on the same day in the Norwich Union Olympic Trials and AAA Championships. Unfortunately Chris Bryan was 7th in heat 4 of the Men's 800m, but produced the respectable time of 1min 52.77s.

At the latest round of the Trafford BMC Grand Prix series, Horsforth brother and sister pairing of Robert and Elizabeth Spencer were again in fine form.

Robert was the second fastest Under 17 Boy on the night, clocking the personal best performance of 4mins 05.0s in the Open 1500m. Elizabeth was the quickest Under 17 Girl when she ran the excellent time of 10mins 38.6s in the second heat of the Open 3000m.

Both these athletes have really benefited from the highly competitive and enclosed atmosphere of the Longford Park track, which is a renowned venue for the region's top middle distance runners.

The final weekend before this weekend's Ben Nevis race saw Skyrac fellrunners fine tune their skills at different venues.

Five clubmates competed in the Mount Skip race at Mytholmroyd.

The 4.5 miles, 1000 feet ascent event was won by Gary Oldfield (Pudsey & Bramley) in 31 min 27 sec with Skyrac runners finishing in order; Duncan Asquith, Ralph Warman, Graham Grinstead, Andy Brear and Max Wood.

On the same day Andrew Symonds (Kendal) won the 5 miles Pendleton Race which ascends 1500 feet onto Pendle Hill in 34 min 6 sec.

For Skyrac Graham Breeze was 44th out of 138 runners in 42.32 and Malcolm Coles, who had just returned from a month of racing in Switzerland (he is a teacher), was 65th in 45.43.

If you would like to reinvigorate your running then Skyrac have the secret and Neil Clayton on 0113-229-0924 or anyone in the famous yellow vest can share it with you.