Action from a Relays event at Linwood at few years ago – we will return to the venue in April (photo by Bobby Gavin)
scottishathletics are pleased to add a new fixture to the 2025 Summer competition calendar.
Saturday 26 April will see the first edition of the 4J National Outdoor Open, designed to offer an early-season competitive opportunity for athletes in the Senior, U20, U18 and Masters age groups.
Linwood will be the venue for this year’s event and we believe hosting a single-venue competition for these age groups allows us to concentrate all of our resources and stage the best event we can for these athletes.
With opportunities to represent Scotland and GB and NI throughout 2025, a number of athletes will be aiming to meet international qualifying standards early in the season and to demonstrate current form. This format enables us to provide a suitable competition environment for athletes to perform at their best as they begin their Summer seasons.
The National Outdoor Open will hold a UKA Level 2 competition licence, ensuring results are eligible for rankings and qualification purposes.
For the younger age groups, the 4J District Championships will continue across three venues on their usual May weekend, offering an early-season medal opportunity to those in the U13, U15 and U17 age groups.
The open events for older athletes previously staged alongside the Districts will be removed from the Districts programme in 2025 in favour of offering the single-venue Outdoor Open a few weeks prior.
This means the Districts weekend will be wholly-focused on developing athletes, with increased capacity within the timetable to accommodate more young runners, jumpers and throwers.
In the North, we appreciate that a number of Highland and Islands athletes are unable to regularly access central belt competitions. For this reason, a limited programme of Senior events will continue to be offered within the North Districts programme. These events will be held under a UKA Level 1 licence, and will be confirmed in the provisional timetable.
We are grateful for the ongoing support of the purple and red army of officials who support the District Championships weekend every year. We hope that this new format will help to balance the workload placed on volunteers and host clubs, creating two enjoyable competition weekends for athletes, coaches, volunteers and officials alike.
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