Marlborough & District Junior Athletics Club (MADJA) have just completed a highly successful season with a 3rd place finish in the 18 club Wessex League, and a 4th place finish in the 16 club National Young Athletes League.

Wessex League includes big city clubs such as Team Southampton, Oxford City and clubs from other southern towns such as Newbury, Basingstoke, Andover, Winchester and Bournemouth.

The Young Athletes League takes MADJA north and west against clubs such as Team Bath, Swindon, Cardiff and Newport.

Club Chairman Richard Cooper commented, “There cannot be many Junior sports clubs in Wiltshire who hold their own against big city competition who are pulling athletes from a much bigger population.

"We have around 160 members aged 7-19 years and a pool of around 20 volunteer coaches and team managers”.

MADJA encourages athletes from seven-years-old upwards to come and give athletics a try.

There is an emphasis on having fun and learning new skills.

Athletes can also work towards improving their “personal bests” across a range of running, jumping and throwing events. In parallel with the junior league competition for older athletes, the Under 11’s compete in a QuadKids League where each athlete in a team of 8 minimum completes a sprint, a longer run, a jump and a throw.

Nine MADJA athletes competed for Wiltshire on Sunday August 23rd, in the SW Inter-Counties championships at Exeter with some fantastic performances.

In the Under 13’s age group MADJA had 2 gold medal winners, with Amy Cooper winning the 1500m and Alex Painting the High Jump.

This coming weekend: Sunday September 6th, MADJA will hold its annual end of season Club Championships and Prizegiving from 9.00am at the College track behind Manton Church.

New athletes are welcome to come along and find out what the club is all about and try out an event or two if they like.

Also Club officials will be able to explain the athlete registration process for the 2010 season.

Please call Karen on 0781 4102234 or email on karen@ukontime.com if you would like to find out more.

The website www.madja.co.uk also has more details.