Sunday 29^th April saw Rebecca Jeggo and Charlie Dobson make their debuts as second claim members for Shaftesbury Barnet, in the UK Youth Development League, Southern Region.  Shaftesbury compete in the Premier Division. This national league includes some of the best athletics clubs in the country including Harrow AC and Windsor, Slough, Eton and Hounslow. On an extremely cold day, both athletes rose to the challenge and put in some excellent performances.

Charlie was first up in the 100m, his opening outdoor race of the season, and he ran strongly to take first place as B string,  but claimed the fastest time of the day as well as a new PB of 10.60s. Rebecca as A string, had a flier of a start and held her own to the finish line dipping below 12 seconds for the first time with a new PB of 11.97s, which  – at time of writing – places her second in the country on Power of Ten for the U20 Age group .

Next up was Dobson’s favoured distance, 200m. After some strong indoor performances, it was going to be interesting to see how he transferred to outdoors. He didn’t disappoint, taking the lead after just a few metres and confidently winning the race a whole second ahead of second place, claiming a massive PB and the World Junior Standard, with a time of 20.74s. (and potentially the YDL U20 League record from 2014).

In her 200m, Jeggo faced tough competition from Blackheath and Bromley, however she again proved her class by not panicking and easing past in the last quarter of the race to take the win, and with it another PB of 24.74s.

Both athletes represented the club in the 4x100m relays with Rebecca’s team finishing third and Charlie’s team coming home first in a time of 43.95s.