Rhys Crawford has broken one Aberdeen AAC record and now has his sights set on another – which happens to be held by his brother Kai.
The Albyn school pupil hit the high spots when competing in the 3,000m at the RAM league meeting at Aberdeen Sports Village.
Crawford,14, finished second behind senior athlete Fearghas Thomson, but was rewarded with a club under-15 age group record of 9min 32.27secs, cutting just over two secs from the previous record set by Alex Thoirs in 2003.
Thoirs, who was a talented athlete in his younger days, has since gone on to enjoy a long career as a footballer with Huntly in the Highland League.
Crawford is now aiming for more success in his preferred distances of 800m and 1500m.
The Aberdeen under-15 age group 800m record of 1:59.80 was set by Harry Hall in 2016. Crawford is within range of that mark, having already clocked a personal best of 2:01.32 this season.
The 1500m record stands to older brother Kai, who clocked 4:14.63 in 2019. Rhys’s best at the moment is 4:24.20, but that seems set for revision on the basis of his current form.
Kai has also been in record-breaking form this summer, posting an under-17 club best of 1:53.93. The previous record, held by Colin Donald, had lasted 37 years.
Rhys gets his next 1500m chance later this month when he competes in British Milers Club meetings at Chester Le Street and Glasgow.
Then he has the English and Scottish championships in August as well as an open meeting at Grangemouth.
There were a number of other fine performances at the RAM meeting.
Struan Linton showed good form when posting the fastest time in the series of 100m races.
Despite running into a headwind, the Aberdeen AAC sprinter blasted his way to an official PB of 11.13secs when finishing ahead of his clubmates David Irvine, 11.50, and Andrew Baldwin, 12.04.
Sharon Jakisa also demonstrated good speed when heading the women’s line-up with a PB 12.23 to get the better of her Aberdeen clubmate and Scottish 200m champion Roisin Harrison, 12.32.
Former Scotland international Kathryn Christie (Banchory Stonehaven AC), who has only managed a handful of competitive outings since undergoing surgery on both feet six years ago, finished third in 12.48.
As a teenager, Christie won the women’s 100m and 200m sprint double at the Scottish senior championships on two occasions – in 2012 and 2014.
Stewart Clark (Banchory Stonehaven AC) won the 400m in a PB 50.70, while other winners included Hannah Cameron (Aberdeen AAC), who took the 1500m in 4:30.13, and her clubmate Robbie Farquhar, who cleared 6.79 in the long jump.
Hodi hits decathlon event feeling confident
William Hodi goes into this weekend’s Scottish under-20 decathlon championships in a confident mood after producing a series of fine performances over the past couple of months.
The 17-year-old Aberdeen AAC and Nairn AAC member has set personal best marks in seven different track and field events, but this will be the first time he has tackled 10 disciplines over one weekend.
He said: “It’s my first decathlon and I’m really excited about it. It should be a good experience and I hope to do well. The best outcome would be to score over 6,100 points and to get a podium position.
“My training has gone well and on the few occasions that the weather has been good for competitions I’ve been able to capitalise on it and get some decent results.”
Hodi admits there are some aspects of the competition which represent a bit of a step into the unknown as there are disciplines he has never competed in before.
He said: “I should be strong in all the jumps and I ran a good 110m hurdles recently, although I’ve still to compete against anyone over that distance.
“But I’ve never raced a 1500m before. Obviously I’ve been training for it, but I’ve never competed. It comes at the end of the competition, so it’ll be a case of just hanging on as best I can.”
Chris crushes Clashmach competition
Chris McPherson won the Clashmach hill race at Huntly, completing the 6k course in 23min 29secs.
Teenager Jordan Cruickshank (Metro Aberdeen) was runner-up in 25:02 with David Barclay (Garioch Road Runners) third in 25:28.
Stonehaven’s Amy Muir led the way in the women’s race, clocking 29:15 to finish 18secs ahead of Chantel Clark while Jake Dey (Insch Trail Running Club) took third spot in 30:32.
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