Emily competed at her last school games on Friday/Saturday of this weekend at Loughborough. Age restrictions for ambulant athletes mean Emily can’t compete next year. As an added bonus for Emily she was made Disability team captain for her fifth games.
Emilys competition started at 1230 on Friday with the shot put. Emily has won a gold medal in this event for the last 2 years but knew she had her work cut out this year against some top shot putters. Emily had a fantastic set of 6 throws with a seasons best of 8.91m . That was enough to secure what was initially a silver medal based on the Raza points system for disability sports.
When thinking about it and remembering the shot put competition from last week in Bedford where Emily didn’t throw as far but the winning girl threw further than this week . The points difference last week was very tight but this week the points difference was a lot bigger but Emily threw further than last week and the other girl didn’t throw as far we thought that didn’t look right. So we queried it with the team manager. The result being the calculation of the Raza points was wrong and Emily was awarded the gold medal.
Next up was Emilys last long jump competition. Emily works really hard in long jump but feels it’s time to move on from this and concentrate on her sprints and shot and her new event for this season the discus. As always Emily was very consistent in her 6 jumps with the best coming in the last round with a distance of 3.53m. That was enough to secure the bronze medal.
That was it , Emilys competition was over so she was off to support her teammates in the other events. It was great to see a lot of the athletes who were competing at there first school games and I’m sure won’t be there last. Emily was out there supporting the young ambulant athletes like she normally does. Hopefully next year Emily would be invited to be a volunteer for the North team but only time will tell.
We would like to thank the England North team management especially Karen Buck and Janice Kaufman for selecting Emily for her 5 games and hopefully Emilys contribution of medals justified her selection over the years. Emilys now on a couple of weeks rest now, then the preparation starts for the indoor season which starts sometime in November.