NEWS

The Athlete Diaries: Competition Life as a Thrower (AVSL Rounds 1 & 2)

By Sarah Mullens

Round 1: Moonee Valley Athletics Centre
The Season 21/22 Throws Crew of Imogen Makin (16 Women), Mark Hambling and Matt Makin (Men 40+) were joined by new recruit Mason Hambling (14 Men) for an epic AVSL Round 1 of throwing. The entire Crew put in some solid performances in both jav and discus, with some clutch throwing by Matt to finally land a jav at the death.  

The Crew then moved to discus Sheet 2, joined by team administrator Sarah Mullens on duty marking throws. Sheet 2 unfortunately ran over time with Mark and Immy only managing to get one throw in before having to depart for an afternoon of throws excitement at Knox.

Blasting Twenty One Pilots on the 50 minute drive to fire themselves up, Mark, Mason, and Imogen then proceeded to blast some excellent shots on the ice rink that is the Knox throwing circle. They then moved to hammer, which proved very entertaining as two hammers ended up in the trees (one unrecoverable). The blame for this lies firmly with Nunawading and Box Hill, so no hammers owed!

A great – and long, because everyone was at Littles at Altona in the morning – day was had by all. Imogen finished up with 1245 points and Mark managed a very decent 1118 points. Mason had a wonderful intro to AVSL with some handy performances throwing up in weights.  

Round 2: Tom Kelly Athletics Track
The Essendon Throws Crew were minus a member today but Mark and Mason Hambling (M40+ and M14), and Imogen Makin (W16) braved the insane traffic on the Westgate (1 hour to get from Altona over the Westgate bridge!) and headed out to Doncaster for some throws action. 

Imogen finished off a great day of shot put with a nice 11.19m after breaking an 18 year old Centre Record at Altona Little Aths earlier in the day (11.77m). Mason put in a great effort with a new PB in shot (6.71m). Mark then turned it on at the hammer with an excellent 24.59m, just shy of his PB.

The Throws Crew missed Matt Makin, who is out of action for the foreseeable future but who will be supporting the Crew when they hit up Knox and Doncaster next week for all four throws events, when the music will be blasting and the Crew hopefully won’t be under flood evacuation orders again!