Olivia Stevenson
15 years old Ollie Stevenson is an outstanding young hammer thrower and is a member of the Hull Hammer Squad. She competes in the under17 year’s age category for Kingston upon Hull Athletic Club. She throws a 3 kilogram hammer.
On Saturday 25th April Ollie travelled down to Loughborough University to compete in their ‘Open’ meeting. Several of the UK’s leading youth hammer throwers both male and female were at the meeting all hoping to attain the qualifying distance’s in order to be selected for the athletics team to fly to Columbia for the IAAF World Youth Championships which will be held in Cali from 15th to 19th of July this year.
The qualifying standard for under17 women is 62 metres. To achieve this Ollie would need to put 5 metres on her PB.
Her main opposition on the day was the UK number one Katie Lambert of Kidderminster & Stourport AC. The two girls had a mighty tussle with the lead changing hands several times during the competition. The quality of the throwing was superb.
Ollie broke her own PB three times during the competition but Katie came back to thwart her each time. In the penultimate round Ollie launched a massive throw of 60.17m. Katie failed to match the throw and the competition winner was Ollie.
Olivia Stevenson is now the under 17 women’s British record holder and is ranked number 1 in the UK. She is also the first under 17 to throw the 3kg hammer over 60 metres.
The throw unfortunately is not enough to gain her selection for the World Youth Championship’s but she has a few more weeks to try and throw the qualification standard.
She is a fantastic hammer thrower and it is always a great pleasure to watch her perform. She is a great person too. Everyone at Costello is willing her on, all the way to Cali.
