14 May Ulidia Student Brings Home The Gold!
Having qualified for the championships Year 8 student Erin Maguire set off to compete in all three of her events on Wednesday 13th May at Antrim Forum.
First up for Erin was the high jump. A field of 11 was very quickly whittled down to 3 girls who all cleared 1.30m. Erin and a competitor from Coleraine Inst. both cleared 1.35m setting the scene for first place. A nervous Erin missed her first attempt at 1.38m and the other girl went clear but this seemed to give Erin the motivation she needed and cleared it with ease on her second attempt. The bar was raised to 1.41m which was the current record having stood since 1988. Her opponent missed and Erin cleared to equal the record leaving her in the driving seat. Erin went on to attempt 1.44m which she cleared on her third attempt smashing the record which had stood for 27 years and become the overall U12 NEBSSA champion.
Her second event was the long jump. In between her high jumps Erin had to make her way over to the long jump as both events were running concurrent. Erin wasn’t as well prepared as she would’ve liked but quickly set up her run up and took her first jump which resulted in a no jump. A quick adjustment to her run up allowed her to land a very conservative jump to ensure she at least completed a jump. It all depended on her final jump and a very cool calm and collected Erin managed a huge jump of 4.10m and first place and again U12 NEBSSA champion.
Her final event was 100m and Erin admitted she was quite nervous for this event as there were a lot of good runners competing. She didn’t get her best start and this was evident as with only 10m left Erin came from fourth to dip for 1st place on the line. An incredible finish and end to her 3 events. Her time was 14.25 secs nearly a second slower than her heat final but a very content Erin collected 3 first place medals for all 3 events.
Trophies were awarded at the end of the competition to the schools with the most points. As Erin was Ulidia’s only competitor we stayed to watch and applaud the winners. No one was more surprised than Erin when Ulidia Integrated College finished third overall with 21 points, all won by Erin, so a proud Erin collected the trophy for the school to round off a fantastic day.
Erin is a huge talent and is to be applauded for her efforts.
