GB athlete is guest speaker at our Junior Presentation Evening
The many great achievements by BAC’s younger athletes over the last year were recognised with a host of awards, certificates and other acknowledgements at our annual Junior Presentation Evening held in Sandy Conservative Club on Friday March 21.
The evening opened with an inspiring talk by guest speaker England and Great Britain athlete and now coach, Julie Pratt-Benterman, a long-time friend of BAC coach David Brown. Julie also presented all the awards.
As an athlete, Julie’s achievements included becoming World U-20 Champion in the women’s sprint hurdles event in Annecy, France, in 1998, and she is still the only GB female ever to win a world title in sprint hurdles. Julie subsequently also competed in two Commonwealth Games, Manchester, England, in 2002 and Melbourne, Australia, in 2006, finishing 6th in the final on both occasions. Now she is a leading sprint hurdles coach with England Athletics.
The gist of Julie’s talk was that achieving success in athletics will inevitably mean dealing with adversity, notably injuries and disappointing performances. The key thing, she said, is to not give up and keep working towards your goals.
The awards and certificates presented during the evening recognised a wide range of achievements by BAC Juniors in both track & field and cross country. Categories included Club Age Group Track & Field Champions, Club Age Group Cross Country Champions, Club Junior Track & Field Event Champions, Club Record Holders, County Badges and England Athletics PB Awards. The efforts of some of BAC’s youngest members were also recognised, with the awarding of Little Bees Certificates of Achievement.
In addition, there were four special individual awards:
Teagan Blake Award − Junior Member of the Year: Lauren Bone
Sonia Brown Award – Little Bee: Theia Freeston-Bull
Outstanding Perseverance Award: Henry Knox
“I beat David Brown“ Award: Ted Islip
The evening also saw the presentation of two general club awards. Carol Brunning was awarded the Lonely Pine trophy for Club Members’ Member of the Year. The Brunning family were presented with the Club Person of the Year trophy. Huge thanks to all of you for all the work you do for the club – the awards are richly deserved.
And finally……………………Many thanks to all those variously involved with organising the presentation evening, putting together the many awards lists, preparing all the food and generally running proceedings on the night, including Niamh, Isabelle, Louise, Carol, Kat, Mandie and David (with apologies to anyone we may have missed out).
● A fuller report on the evening and the names of all the award and certificate recipients will be published in a special edition of BAC’s Junior Newsletter due to be sent out shortly.