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Breakthrough at the Bay

Whilst Philippa and Dominic are seasoned competitors on the athletics scene, Lil Lexie is still a relative newcomer and she's making her U13 debut this coming season.

She has had her hand in over the Winter with another season of 60m & 600m at the Monkton Indoor Series, plus she's also been competing in the Gateshead College Open Meetings.  At Gateshead, she's been doing shot putt and her pb has improved with every competition, thanks to some coaching from Alex Giles and team at Gateshead.

Now Lexie has had a few issues with hoying.  She's fairly recently swapped hands and now does shot with her left hand.  So why the change is the question that I've been asked by a few people.  Well, in true Lexie tradition, she was getting pain in her right hand when she was throwing and that was due to the metalwork in her right wrist that she broke when she was a bit younger.  It wasn't just an ordinary break, but falling from the top of the climbing frame whilst doing "Gangnam Style" led to some pretty nifty surgery having to be done to put her wrist back together again.

Onto Whitley Bay and the North East Throws Festival.

Anyone who stalks the Power of 10 will have seen Lexie's progression and we we're willing her to breach the 5m throw at the last Gateshead Indoors but she was agonisingly close with a 4.95m throw.  Her training had been going really well and she was hitting the 5m in training and we hoped that the move outdoors might do the trick.

We weren't disappointed and with her 2nd throw at Throws Fest she hit 5.18m and we were ecstatic and so was she.  The confidence it gave her oozed out and she then went better with 5.37m in her third throw.  It was a real high five moment all round and distracted Alex and I who were meant to be officiating on the discus at the time !

It was real progress and it shows that training really does pay off and we're really looking forward to what she can do in the coming season.

Lexie wasn't on her own with the breakthroughs at Whitley Bay either.  Philippa had been close to 10m in her shot putt over the winter and she did hit 10.06m in the Sportshall Regional Final, but due to the lack of qualified officials, it couldn't go on the Power of 10.  Throws Festival was a breakthrough too for Philippa as she got a 10.11m shot in, so it was celebrations all round.

Let's hope that the pb's continue for both of them during the coming outdoor season.

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