Peeblesshire News | Sport | Hat-trick of athletics champions

Thursday, 4th December, 2008

Published: Friday, 23rd February, 2007 12:30

Hat-trick of athletics champions

By David Knox

PEEBLESSHIRE track trio Chris O’Hare, Shaun Devenney and Fuzzy Mitchell all became Scottish indoor champions at the weekend.

But the pacey perfectionists still weren’t happy – as they narrowly failed to smash the national records at the Bank of Scotland Age Group Championships in Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall.

Innerleithen’s Fuzzy Mitchell destroyed the field of the Under 13’s 60-metres – winning comfortably in her heat and semi-final to reach the final on Saturday.

But a tumble at the end of the 12-year-old’s second sprint race left her bruised and grazed.

Despite the aches and pains, the Charlie Russell trained flyer still won the final by a couple of strides, missing the record by a tenth-of-a-second.

Her coach told the Peeblesshire News: “We thought Fuzzy would win, she is running exceptionally well just now. She was determined to break the record, and I thought she was capable, but she was sore after falling at the end of the semi final.

“There were runners from all over the UK at the championships and she still ran away from them. We are delighted with her wins.”

Fuzzy followed up her 60-metres success with another storming run to break the tape in the Under-13s 200-metres final.

Further success followed for the region when the big boys took to the track on Sunday.

West Linton pair Shaun Devenney and Chris O’Hare have both gained reputations as being amongst the best in the country.

And during the weekend meeting they showed why.

Shaun Devenney qualified comfortable for the final of the Under-17s 800-metres before producing a terrific run to win the title in an impressive 1.58.83.

The John Lees trained16-year-old was making amends for his photo-finish defeat over the same distance at the closed championships in Glasgow last month.

Chris O’Hare seems to collecting titles for fun this year. The 16-year-old strolled through his heat of the 1500-metres.

And showed a clean pair of heels from the gun to win the final by more than half-a-lap in a time of 4.05.64. His dad, and assistant coach, Terry said: “Although he won well he was a little disappointed to have missed the record by just over two seconds.

“He paced it well from the start in the final and nobody could stay with him – it was a good run.”

The Dave Campbell trained athlete heads for Nottingham this weekend to lead the East of Scotland Cross Country team at the Inter Counties Championships.

One interested spectator at last weekend’s championships in Glasgow was chief executive of Scottish Athletics Geoff Wightman. He said: “There were many fine performances from the athletes on what was a very enjoyable weekend. They and their coaches deserve every credit.

“There was also a very healthy entry across all events, proving that athletics is an attractive past-time for young people.”

Social Bookmarking What are these?