A SPORTS club formed five years ago is celebrating after picking up a national award.

Team East Lothian Athletics Club clinched the Impact Club of the Year Award at the scottishathletics awards.

Athletes, coaches, officials, volunteers and supporters of Team East Lothian Athletics Club gathered last Tuesday evening at the East Lothian Athletics Arena at Meadowmill to celebrate the success.

Trustee and lead coach Jamie Bowie said: “Team East Lothian have had a breakthrough year; purple Team East Lothian vests have really been making their mark, with our performance squads delivering significant results at local, regional, national and international levels.”

Bowie was also one of the seven finalists in the performance coach of the year category, which was won by Andy Young, and is also coach to inspirational Dunbar Paralympian Maria Lyle.

Five-time European champion Lyle trains as part of the Team East Lothian performance squad and has just received an invitation to join the British Athletics World Class programme.

As a registered charity, the club not only aims to support the athletes following their performance pathway to deliver competitive results but has other objectives too.

Stuart Donnelly, trustee, said: “The club aims to inspire, engage and support the whole East Lothian community to improve their health and wellbeing through athletics.

“We have so many things on the go at the moment: we engage with over 400 primary school pupils per year through our ‘run, jump, throw’ programme; through our partnership with the Meadowmill JogScotland group and with our ‘train like an athlete’ programme we’re supporting adult runners of all abilities; we’re working with Queen Margaret University to develop the use of race-running bikes for para-athletes; and we’re delivering speed and strength training sessions for team sports players in the county.”

In the coming year, it does not look like the pace of development for Team East Lothian is going to slow.

Long-term partners and supporters 4J Studios in East Linton are match-funding with the EU-backed TyneEsk Leader Fund to financially support the club to develop facilities at the Meadowmill track.

A covered area for spectators and athletes is to be created and equipment for pole-vault introduced.

Team East Lothian has part-funded the position of athletics development officer in partnership with East Lothian Council and enjoyleisure for a number of years.

Lynda Gilroy, athletics development officer, has projects under way to provide opportunities for athletics to all parts of the community, including supporting the creation of a number of parkrun Saturday morning events planned for the county.