ATHLETES Louis Whyte and Kieran Fulton did Peebles High proud last weekend, having been selected for the Scottish Schools’ Athletics Team to compete in an international meet against the home nations.
The event took place at Grangemouth Stadium and brought together the top under-17 school athletes in the UK for head-to-head competition.
And Whyte, 16, and 15-year-old Kieran excelled.
Whyte, a rising star over the last year, joined Linda Nicholson’s Peebles-based jumps group and improved over the indoor season to head the rankings for long jump and triple jump in Scotland in the under-17 age group.
In this his first ever international he produced the jumps of his life to smash the 7m long jump barrier with a 7m04 jump, beating higher ranked athletes to take the silver medal. His jump ranks seventh in the Scotland all-time list for this age group.
Whyte was back in action in triple jump later in the day – one of the few athletes selected for more than one event – and hop, stepped and jumped past his previous best to achieve 13m81 and snatch an unexpected bronze.
Fulton was second string for Scotland in the 800m, but strength and experience showed as he avoided some physical manoeuvring around the final bend and emerged cleanly into fourth spot with a time of one minute 57.31 seconds, beating the Scottish number one in fifth.
Both athletes compete in the Scottish Championships in a few weeks’ time. Whyte heads down south to take on the English again in the England Open Championships in August.
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