Athletics NSW held the NSW Relay Championships, at Blacktown on November, 26 and 27.
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Guyra Central School’s Kelsie Youman competed at this event and came away with some pleasing results with her fellow Armidale Athletics club members.
The girls competed in the women’s under 20 4x400m team, who brought home the clubs first bronze medal, as the quartet took over seven seconds off the previous female club record, recording a time of 4:09.93 for the four laps.
Kelsie then competed in the under 18 women’s 4x200m with Mikielee Snow beginning her racing weekend along with Grace Martin, Grace Cassidy and Kelsie who backed up from the 4x400m. The team again had crisp baton changes to finish fifth.
The final relay on Saturday was the open female medley relay, which consisted of Kelsie Youman, Natasha Favotto, Grace Cassidy and Mikielee Snow. None of the girls are open age competitors, and were up against teams fielding Olympians including Anneliese Rubie and Michelle Jenneke. All four girls ran strongly on tired legs, and placed 11th overall in a time of 4:27.61.
On Sunday the girls stepped upto the plate again in the 4x800m women’s team, racing in the under 20 division. This was the first time Armidale Athletics had fielded a female team in a 4x800m relay, with Natasha Favotto having previously raced against the men.
Initially one of the strongest teams when the relay trip was planned, injury and illness hindered the clubs female middle distance team and it fell upon 12 year old Anastasia Martin to run with the older women to give the team a chance at a good result.
Anastasia led the team off, and the youngster did a great job in keeping the girls in the race. Not overextending herself early and finishing strong, Anastasia handed over to Grace, who took off after the leader. Grace ran a very strong 800m split and handed over the baton to Kelsie, who raced up toward the leader and after only 400m had already shot into the lead. Kelsie didn't back off in the second lap, and extended the teams lead before handing over to Natasha to bring the team home. The second place UTS North’s team saved their best runner for last, and she began chipping away at the Armidale lead, but Natasha wasn't about to let the margin slip away, running a strong 800m split to bring the team home for a well-earned gold medal.