Amber Valley athletes are East Midland champions

27 November 2008

It was ‘Amber for Go’ at Loughborough University as young sportshall athletes from Amber Valley triumphed again.

The team of 30 boys and girls, aged 9 to 11, competed on Saturday 22nd November against 6 other teams representing county and districts from the East Midlands, in the annual Aviva-supported ‘Fun in Athletics’ Festival.

The Amber Valley team won both the boys and the girls’ competitions seeing off the Lincolnshire Typhoons team in 2nd place.

Sportshall Athletics is traditional track and field brought indoors, using specially adapted equipment and events such as foam javelin, standing long jump and obstacle relays. The programme of 7 different relays and 9 different field events are all designed to test the youngsters speed, strength, coordination, agility and balance.

The Amber Valley team represents the Borough and is selected from local cluster competitions in September and October, involving over 700 children from around 40 primary schools. The process of school competition through to the Final is organised by Amber Valley Borough Council's Athletics Coordinator, with substantial assistance from volunteers and coaches from Amber Valley Athletics Club, and volunteers on the Sports Development Unit Leadership Development programmes.

The Amber Valley team has an almost unbroken record of success over the past 8 years of entering the East Midlands Final. The Borough has developed a tradition of producing talented teams and is an example of strong working links between the Boroughs schools, the local authority and Amber Valley AC.

Many of the athletes introduced to athletics via the sportshall teams, have gone on to national success in track and field and cross country.

More details about sportshall athletics and results from the competition can be found on www.sportshall.org (opens in a new window)

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