Weekly Update Saturday 3rd April
Track Training & Bookings Now Live For Non Club Sessions/Nights:
Our juniors have just completed their first week back training outdoors and is was great to see so many of them back enjoying their athletics again, our thanks to all the volunteer coaches, Covid officers, club committee and cafe team whose hard work made it possible. Welsh Government permitting of course we very much hope to see our over 18’s joining them and us having access to the indoor facilities, which most disappointingly doesn’t look like this will be allowed until May!! Here’s a reminder of our Covid 19 plan and protocols Swansea Harriers Covid Plan Version 6 @ 02.04.21 which now includes the amendment of athletes in school year 13 being able to train too as per government guidelines.
You cannot just turn up to training, athletes must only attend a club session upon direct invitation from their coach and must confirm their attendance not less than 24 hours before the session is due to commence. You will only be allowed to train if a UKA qualified coach is in attendance.
All athletes must register at the club cafe before each session to ensure that the club and the facility maintains an accurate record of who is training, this will assist with contact tracing should it be necessary.
For users of the Athletics track in sessions outside of Swansea Harriers sessions are now available to book via a new online booking system. Whilst the University remains under covid operations, all athletes (or parents on behalf of junior athletes) will be required to book and pay via this system. To do this, athletes first need to set up a Pay As You Go (PAYG) membership via the relevant link below:
Community Users: English or in Welsh
Swansea University Staff: English or in Welsh
Swansea University Students: English or in Welsh
Athletes will only be required to do this once, and there is no charge for this membership. Once a PAYG membership is set up, athletes can then use the following link for all future bookings, but a ‘password reset’ will need to be requested in the first instance by clicking here. On the first visit to the Athletics track after setting up a member profile, athletes will need to report to the Indoor Track office to collect their membership card, or update their staff/student card. Should you experience any difficulties with the above, or would like more information, please contact staff at: Email – [email protected] Tel: 01792 602400 Mob: 07870 244761
Results:
Friday 26th March saw two of our club superstars competing in the trials for the Tokyo Olympics Marathon trial at Kew Gardens, London. The trial was streamed live on the BBC where both Dewi Griffiths and Joshua Griffiths performed brilliantly against the UK top Marathon runners. Both set their standards incredibly high and whilst both were gutted to miss out on gaining selection for the Olympics, they did both comfortably break the qualification time for next years Commonwealth Games in Birmingham of 2:15.30, not a bad consolation prize at all! Dewi eventually placed 4th in 2:13.42 and Joshua just behind in 5th 2:15.08. Both are relatively young for top Marathon running and we know there are even bigger and better things to come from them over the next few years. Click here for the full results.
Fixtures:
As with everything these days, it is very much in pencil, but our fixture list for on and off track events is starting to evolve. Please keep checking the fixture page once a week as events are added, or rescheduled and links to the entry pages are made available.
Swansea University Bullying Research:
Welsh Athletics have asked the club to take part in some research being undertaken by Swansea University which has been commissioned by the Child Protection in Sport Unit of the NSPCC. The research is to help determine the prevalence of any kind of bullying in local sports and the University is looking for engaged and proactive clubs across a range of sports to help. The research is specifically aimed at young people in sport, their parents and their coaches. Whatever your experience with the club – and we hope it has always been a positive one – we would like you to help the University and Welsh Athletics by completing the relevant survey. The link to the relevant surveys are below. The survey findings are confidential, and the results anonymised.