At the age of only thirteen, Joshua Newman has been named Birchfield Harriers Athlete of the Month for June and in doing so becomes the youngest athlete to receive this accolade.
The teenager who lives in Aldridge followed his older brother Ben as a nine year old to the AGA Academy at the Alexander Stadium on Saturday mornings four years ago.
On his debut on the national stage, Joshua won a silver medal in the Under 13 Shot with a 10.55 metres put at the UK Athletics Young Athletes Final in September 2005.
In May of last year, Josh won his first ever Warwickshire County titles at Leamington Spa with a 12.01 metres put and a time of 13.1 seconds for the 100 metres sprint in the Under 13 age group. A fortnight later, he won the Midland Counties Quadrathlon title.
The youngster ended his first full outdoor campaign by winning the gold medal at the UK Athletics Young Athletes Final with an 11.62 metres put as well as placing runner up in the 100 metres and anchoring the 4x100m Relay to victory.
Last winter, the Arthur Terry schoolboy competed with considerable distinction winning a hat trick of gold medals in sports: hall competition at local, regional and national level. The young Stag was unbeaten in the Birmingham League at Stockland Green in the Shot Put, two lap race and the anchor leg of the Relay. Josh repeated this feat when he represented Birmingham at the West Midlands Regional Final at Worcester including winning the Shot Put by a margin of more than five metres.
In April, the Birchfield Harrier captained the Birmingham Under 13 team on an historic occasion at the national Indoor arena when Birmingham became the first team to complete a clean sweep of all the team titles.
Joshua began his outdoor season by winning both the Warwickshire and Midland Under 15 Shot Put titles in May under the tutelage of Andy Britton. On 3 June he improved by virtually a metre when he put the shot a massive distance of 14.22 metres at the Midlands Premier Young Athletes match at Cheltenham for which he was named Male Field Athlete of the meeting. This performance ranks him Number One in the Under 15 age group in the West Midlands and Number Six in the UK even though he will still be in the same category next year.
Sharon Morris, the Young Athletes Team Manager who initially coached Josh from the AGA Academy through to the club commented,
"We are extremely proud of Josh who we call "the gentle giant" and the patents who come out and support the lads think the world of him. He is always polite to every one, always smiling and always gives 100% to his performances. He thoroughly deserves this award.
Tom McCook
10 July 2007
