Report by Grant Nairn

Well, what a two days that has been! Sunday 5th February saw three and a quarter (more on that later!) Inverness Harriers teams competing at the annual indoor SUPERteams competition at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow. This event has proved a happy hunting ground for the gold and maroon mini-legends in recent times, with medals returning north up the A9 on the past three trips to either the indoor fixture or the corresponding summer meet. How would we fare this weekend?

Well, first, a quick reminder of what SUPERteams is all about. Athletes compete in teams of four boys or four girls with every athlete in the team doing a 60m, long jump, shot putt and the 4x200m relay. Athletes get points based on their performances and their best score for each event goes towards their team’s total. All team scores are gathered in a league table, with trophies presented to the winning team and medals to the top three places. It is an extremely enjoyable day with no pressure on the athletes – the emphasis is on having fun and learning from the experience.

We took down thirteen athletes this time, comprising of two girls teams, Team ‘Awesome’ (Zoe Sharpe, Grace Macdonald, Lucy Clark and Stroma Fraser) and Team ‘Brilliant’ (Caitlin Brown, Anna Cairns, Isobel Garvie and Islay Rutter), along with one boys team, Team ‘Legend’ (Lachlan Buchanan, Rory Stainsby, Bobby Russell, Finlay Cooper and Adam Watkins (reserve)).

So how did we do? Well, I think everyone will have seen the other posts and photos on the group page, so will know that Inverness Harriers have had an incredibly successful weekend. By the end of the day on Sunday, our boys team were climbing onto the podium to collect the bronze medals as reward for a superb set of performances. This was closely followed by our Girls ‘A’ team stepping up onto the central platform of the presentation podium to receive their gold medals and collect the trophy and title of ‘SUPERteams Girls Winners 2017′. Our Girls ‘B’ team, while not collecting any medals this time, performed with real style, and indeed drew admiring comments from several around the arena, particularly for their relay performance. It had proved to be an absolutely outstanding day, with brilliant performances from all in the gold and maroon!

But, there was more to come! On returning home late on Sunday, just before heading to bed for some much needed sleep(!), I checked to see if the results had been posted up on the Scottish Athletics website. They had – and what I saw got the head buzzing and made for a rather sleepless night! There had been some errors in the compilation of the results sheet, which saw our boy’s team receiving an incorrect points total. This morning (Monday), Scottish Athletics had been made aware of the situation, and to their credit, promptly set about correcting any errors and recompiling the results sheets. By evening time Inverness Harriers boys team had been put in their rightful place at the top of the results table, earning them the title of ‘SUPERteams Boys Winners 2017′. A double set of winners!

And so another adventure down the A9 for the juniors has resulted in more medals – and trophies this time! – returning back north. All thirteen athletes should be delighted with how the day went. Their performances were excellent and their behaviour impeccable, with all being a credit to themselves, their parents and the club. It was once more a delight to spend a long, tiring but extremely enjoyable day with these enthusiastic young people.

A big thank goes out to all the parents and supporters who made the journey down to the Emirates Arena. Hopefully you enjoyed your day out as much as the bairns! A massive thank you to Joan and Gordy for helping look after the athletes (couldn’t do it without you!) and to Ian for backup support and photos. Also, a huge thank you to David for taking on most of the driving of the minibus and for his support throughout the day. It really is appreciated.

And so, we look forward to the summer SUPERteams event, which this time will be held in Inverness on Saturday 17th June. Get the date in your diary! It’s going to be strange going to SUPERteams without travelling!

But wait, what about that quarter team I mentioned at the start? Well, special mention must go to the boys team reserve, Adam Watkins, who decided to travel down with us on the crazy-bus, even though he knew there would a good chance he would not be called upon to compete. On arrival at the venue, I enquired with the declarations admin team as to whether there were any incomplete teams from other clubs, which he could perhaps fill a slot with. This led to young Adam being ‘adopted’ by Kilmarnock Harriers into one of their teams, with whom he spent the day competing in all the events. He performed brilliantly in his first competition (wearing gold and maroon!) and thanks go to Kilmarnock Harriers for allowing him to join their team and for helping look after him during the day. It must been pretty daunting joining a group of strangers at your first team competition, and it illustrates perfectly the great team atmosphere and spirit we have among the junior ranks at the club. Well done wee man, and I promise you’ll get your chance in a Harriers team in the future!