The 2025 Isle of Man Track and Field League got underway at the National Sports Centre last Wednesday evening in perfect conditions.

It was an earlier-than-usual start to the season, with the second round to take place on Wednesday, April 23 to allow potential Island Games athletes an opportunity to achieve consideration standards or to show form prior to the selection meeting later in the month.

Several did just that in fine style. Aimee Christian began the evening with a superb run in the 400 metres hurdles, clocking a new personal best time of 64.1 seconds and coming close to the senior Isle of Man record.

Under-17 Rory Turner also went very well in the senior men’s race and set an excellent time of 69.4 seconds.

In the 200 metres races, Eve Martin was the star in the u13 girls’ race with a new age group IoM record time of 27.7 seconds. The previous record had stood to Zoe Kennish since 1998.

The fastest male and female competitors were Ben Sinclair and Georgia Price with 23.0 and 26.7 seconds respectively.

In the u15 age group there were highly impressive performances from Taylor Kneen, Issy Kennaugh, Daisy Shimmin, Deena Barker and several others, making the most of the excellent conditions.

Lucas Stennett was targeting an Island Games A standard in the 5,000 metres and was inside schedule in the first half of the race. He eventually slipped 10 seconds outside but his time of 15m 50.7s was very good.

In the concurrently-run 3,000 metres race Max Hammal cracked the 10-minute barrier with 9:58.6, with Cosmo Kinley not far behind.

A strong contender for performance of the evening came from Lucy Ormsby in the u20 women’s 400 metres.

Having missed a full year of action due to injury and illness she ran a perfectly-executed race to clock a time of 58.9 seconds, well inside the Island Games A standard. Matt Davis ran a solid season opener of 52.00 seconds.

The 300 metres races saw strong performances from u15 Taylor Kneen with 41.7 seconds, u17 Jess Bergquist with 43.4 and u15 Daisy Shimmin with 46.9.

In the field, double Island Games high jump medallist James Margrave started his season with a very consistent set of jumps, clearing a best height of 1.95 metres.

Tegan Thompson achieved another Island Games A standard of 1.55 metres and Holly Charmer got a B standard of 1.50 metres.

Women’s triple jumping is currently strong and the quartet of Georgia Price, Ewelina Hand and the Schreuder sisters Jessica and Ashleigh all performed very well.

Georgia achieved the longest jump of the evening with 10.87 metres and she should be very competitive if selected for the Games.

U15 Deena Barker was the best long jumper of the evening with a distance of 4.72 metres and this excellent all-rounder was also very impressive in the javelin with 29.94 metres.

In the pole vault Zac Woodward and Lara Smith jumped well, clearing 3.10 metres and 2.80 metres respectively.

The evening concluded in rapidly fading light with the 800 metres races, with Sam Perry running even splits for a pleasing season opener of 1:55.9 to finish clear of Alex Bell and u17 Liam Blake. U17 Neve Madden was the fastest female competitor with 2:28.8.

The junior age group races were won by Eve Martin and Rory Teare to conclude an excellent evening of athletics.

DAVID GRIFFITHS