Midland Senior Championships, Nuneaton – 18/19 June
Jessie Brown consolidated her place as one of the leading Under 23 Javelin throwers in the U.K. when she secured an excellent 2nd place and silver medal at last weekend’s Midland Senior Championships. For the second time in the space of a few days she hurled the 600g Javelin over the 45m mark with a best throw of 45.07m in weather conditions that were not ideal. Jessie can now look forward to carrying this consistency into the England Under 23 Championships in a few weeks time at Bedford.
Also competing at the Midlands was Multi-Eventer Alice Robinson who came away with a Bronze medal in the 4kg Shot recording a personal best of 9.56m. Contesting three other events over the two day’s competition, she also set new PBs in the Javelin with 33.57m to finish in 4th place, Long Jump with a distance of 4.33m and having her first run over the 100m Hurdles, recorded a time of 20:21.
Mason Trophy Inter County Schools, Stoke – Saturday 18th June
Seven AVEAC athletes competed for their counties at the prestigious Mason Trophy Championships on Saturday. The event is the next biggest competition to the English School’s Championships, involving ten counties across the Midlands and North West. Each county was allowed to nominate two athletes per event in track and jumps and one in the throws. A high quality contest saw our six athletes perform well against some of the best talented runners, jumpers and throwers in the region. The weather conditions were the complete opposite to the Derbyshire Schools the week before with intermittent heavy showers and low temperatures being the pattern throughout the day.
Competing in the Intermediate Girl’s competition, Imogen Laugharne produced two medal winning performances with a Silver in the 80m Hurdles and Bronze in the High Jump. She recorded a good time in the sprint hurdles of 12:11 despite the conditions and had another consistent clearance of 1.55m in the High Jump.
George Reynolds finished just outside the medals in the Intermediate Long Jump with a distance of 6.09m to claim 4th spot. He also finished 10th fastest overall out of the three 200m sprints with a time of 23:53. At the close of the day George teamed up with Derby athletes Kevin Masukume and Sam Coulson and Burton athlete Kaiden Ramsay to take the Gold medal in the 4 x 100m Relay; the Derbyshire quartet clocked a time of 45:61.
Junior Javelin throwers Freya Kirby and Gino Franco both finished 5th in their events. Freya produced an effort of 28.48m while Gino’s best throw was 32.72m. Representing Nottinghamshire, Daisy Kaye just missed a podium position with a 4th place finish in the Intermediate Girl’s Javelin; her distance on this occasion was 30.74m.
In the Intermediate Girl’s Long Jump, Mae Jones finished 6th on 4.87m while our youngest competitor at the championships Isla Hiscocks was 12th fastest overall in the Junior 100m in a time of 13.37.
Heart of England League, Kettering – Sunday 19th June
As we go to publication the results of the second Heart of England League fixture have not yet been published and a fuller report of AVEAC performances will appear in the next blog.
Another busy weekend ahead…
Three of our GB Internationals have accepted invitations to take part in this weekend’s U.K. Championships and World Trials in Manchester. Ella Rush will take part in the Heptathlon while Jess Turner and Alex Knibbs will line up in the 400m Hurdles. Also competing in the long hurdles will be Club Coach Nisha Desai who will be representing her home club, Morpeth Harriers.
While our Senior athletes are in Manchester our youngest members will be taking part in the third Mini League fixture at Moorways on Saturday.
On Sunday our U17 & 20 athletes will take part in the final Upper YDL fixture at Burton.
On Saturday and Sunday as well Imogen Laugharne and Ben Pitts will represent Derbyshire at the Midland Schools Combined Events Championships in Oxford.
We wish all the athletes well!
Words – J. McColgan
Photos acknowledgement
Midland Championships – Scott Knighton
Mason Trophy – Dave Laugharne and Roy Reynolds