Fifteen Kestrels took to the track at the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting, competing across the 75m and 600m as part of the youngest end of Momentum Sports' club programme on 30th August.
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The U12 girls provided the highlight of the group's day in the 75m, where Amelia took gold in 11.23, just ahead of clubmate Betty in silver with 11.25. A gap of two hundredths of a second over 75 metres is about as close as sprint racing gets at any age, and the two athletes finishing first and second within that margin reflects the strength of the Kestrel group's sprinting this year. Amelia's win adds a time to the gold medal she picked up in the U12 Girls 75m, confirmed among the meeting's age-group results published earlier, while Betty's silver completes a strong day for the pair specifically.
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Beyond the U12 girls' race, the Kestrels turned out in numbers across both the 75m and 600m, with the group spanning athletes who have already raced several league matches this season alongside others for whom Kingston was a first taste of competition altogether. That mix is central to how the Kestrel group operates within Momentum Sports: a training and competition pathway for the club's youngest athletes that gives experienced competitors and complete newcomers a race on the same day, at the same meeting, under the same conditions.
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The 600m tested a different set of skills to the short sprint of the 75m, asking younger athletes to judge an even effort across roughly one and a half laps of the Weir Archer track rather than relying purely on reaction and top speed. For athletes racing the distance for the first time, pacing a race that long is as much a learning experience as a competitive one, and the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting's age-graded 600m gives the Kestrel group exactly that kind of opportunity each year.
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Fifteen athletes from a single training group competing at one meeting is a meaningful turnout, and it reflects the scale Momentum Sports has built into its junior programme over the four years the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting has been running. The meeting's own PB board and photo booth, both popular fixtures with the club's younger athletes throughout the day, gave the Kestrels their own moments to mark alongside the racing itself, regardless of where each individual result landed in the final standings.
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For a group with such a wide spread of experience, from athletes contesting their first ever race to those with a full season of league matches behind them, the emphasis on the day was less about outright results and more about getting as many young athletes as possible onto the start line. Amelia and Betty's 1-2 in the U12 girls 75m stood out as the group's headline result, but every Kestrel who raced, whatever their experience level, came away with something from the day.
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With one meeting now behind them, the hope from the club is straightforward: more new faces joining the Kestrel group and racing at next year's Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting, building on a turnout of fifteen that already represents a strong showing from the club's youngest age groups. The 75m and 600m results sit alongside the club's other junior medal winners on the day, part of a wider U10 and U12 programme that ran across both distances for boys and girls throughout the age groups, with the Kestrels' own turnout adding depth to what was already a well-attended junior field at Kingston. Well done to everyone who raced.
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