CITY of York Athletic Club’s upper and lower teams have made an ideal start to their Youth Development League campaigns after a blank 2020.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, all YDL competitions were cancelled in 2020. These fixtures were a long in time coming for the club.

On Sunday, May 30, the under-17s and U20s won well at a home meeting, competing against Gateshead Harriers & Athletics Club, Kingston upon Hull AC, Leeds City AC and Spenborough & District AC.

The fixture was on the first weekend of the half-term holiday which meant that many athletes were unavailable but City of York still managed to get together a strong team.

On top of the win, there were plenty of personal-best performances among the notable displays.

In the personal bests were Ben Pearson, who ran the 100 metres in 11.53 seconds, Charlie Wright the 800m in 2:05.74 minutes and Izzi O’Brien the 1500m in 4:49.17. Adam Tranter leapt 5.67m in the long jump and Hannah Ellam 10.59m in the triple jump.

The following week, on Saturday, June 5, City of York's younger athletes competed in the YDL in York against Gateshead Harriers, Harrogate Harriers AC, Kingston Upon Hull AC, Leeds City AC and Spenborough & District AC.

As with the older City of York cohort, the U13s and U15s had not competed for some time in this competition and, for many of the U13s, it was their first taste of competitive athletics.

City of York were dominant throughout with some personal bests among the superb performances on a fine day.

The U15 girls 4x100m relay team of Esme Pounder, Emily Maude, Grace Green-Hemmings and Freya Vidal broke a 16-year-old club record with a time of 50.08 seconds.

Meanwhile, the U15 girls' 4x300m relay team also broke a seven-year-old club record. The team of Imogen Barrett, Kiri Shaw, Kathryn Clague and Ella Wright recorded a time of 3:05.64 minutes.

Lewis Rutter notched a personal best in the U15 boys shot put with 10.89m and Freya Vidal ran a 12.68-second personal best in the U15 girls 100m.

U13 runner Daniel Campbell came an agonising half-second away from Alex Botterill's club record with a 3:59.74 finish in the 1200m. Charlie Blades, meanwhile, notched 4:09.40 in the same event.

Archie Wright broke his own club record by over a metre in the U13 boys javelin with a throw of 32.96m to establish himself once again at the top of the UK rankings.

Lucy Gilbertson (4:03.11) and Isobel Madden (4:10.40) also excelled in the U13 girls 1200m.