What are they?
Track & Field Open Meets are staged by clubs and competition providers and are, by definition, open to all. Some events may have restrictions or qualifying standards, but these are rare. They are a good way to target a particular event performance, gain some experience in competition before representing your club or just sharpening or practicing one or more of your favourite events. You enter these competitions as an individual although you do represent your club your [first-claim] club and will appear in the results as such. If you are first-claim Maidenhead (like the majority of our athletes) any performances will also qualify for club rankings, awards and club records. Remember, please consider training and competition load (including other sports at clubs & school). Over competing can cause injury or a drop in performance rather than the desired opposite. Talk to a coach if you’d like some advice on achieving an appropriate and positive balance, whether for yourself or your young athlete.
How to enter
There are three entry systems used:
- OpenTrack: https://data.opentrack.run/en-gb/x/
- Roster Athletics: https://meets.rosterathletics.com/public/competitions
- SportsSoft: https://www.race-results.co.uk/results/
Additionally, PowerOf10 is getting back to listing future fixtures with links to the organisers entry system – often one of those three listed above but occasionally via the club website or similar.
What to wear
There are generally no rules around mandatory club kit, but in general, most athletes wear their club vest (or T-shirt for younger athletes) as it avoids falling foul of any of the rules on permitted logos & sponsors which cover all athletics competitions in the UK. It’s also good to proudly show the colours of your club and get into the habit of competition routine. For more tips on what to expect, check out this blog post.
Results
If the competition was entered through Roster or OpenTrack, results will appear on the meeting page on those platforms (sometimes immediately if electronic timing is being used for track races). They, like any licenced competition results once finalised, end up on The Power Of 10. Want to know more about that? Check out this post.