Thanet Athletics Club is a new club that was launched on Tuesday 20th April 2010. We offer coaching and competition in a range of athletics events for all abilities and ages from eight years upwards. We train at The Marlowe Academy in Ramsgate, initially from 6.00 to 7.30pm every Tuesday with further training nights to be added as the club develops. Our catchment area is the main Thanet towns of Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairs and the surrounding villages and rural areas.
Thanet Athletics Club was born out of a sportshall athletics club that I started in April 2008 at King Ethelbert School in Birchington to give children a route into athletics with the knowledge that the new £1.4m athletics track at The Marlowe Academy would be opening later that summer.
The club was very successful, numbers increased steadily and in Autumn 2009 we decided that our children were ready for their first taste of competitive athletics. The children chose to call themselves the Thanet Baby Bolts, after Olympic and World Champion sprinter Usain Bolt, and performed very well at the Thanet Sportshall Athletics Grand Prix and the Kent County Athletics Association Sportshall Winter Series. We were encouraged by this success and by the support of our parents, some of whom have taken coaching qualifications and others who have volunteered in other ways.
At the same time, a group of independent athletics coaches were interested in what we were doing and we got together to offer an open track and field training night for all ages at The Marlowe Academy from July to October 2009. Again, we were encouraged by the numbers that attended and by the comments that we received from athletes and parents.
A few of us got together over Christmas 2009 and decided that we could do it and Thanet Athletics Club started to become a reality. We brought together some excellent coaches and the support team that is necessary to run a sports club and the background work has now been completed. We are properly constituted and are affiliated to England Athletics.
We know, from our work with local schools, that there is considerable demand for an athletics club in our area. We are committed to developing the sport of athletics in Thanet and our aim is to be as successful as the nearby clubs in Canterbury and Ashford.
If you are interested in athletics please join us on on a Tuesday evening or contact any of us via the Contact page.
Phil Pittock
Chairperson
Thanet Athletics Club
