Ben Pitts competed at the English School’s Combined events championships at Bedford last Saturday and Sunday and came away with a fantastic personal best, in the Senior Boy’s Decathlon finishing eighth overall in a field of twenty athletes. His final score at the end of the gruelling two days of competition was 5524 points, an improvement of 255 points on his previous best set in Liverpool earlier in the month. Ben also set six individual event personal bests during the course of the two days.
On day one, he set the first of his new best marks in the opening 100m recording 12.20 seconds, knocking one tenth of a second off his previous best. He then produced a solid long jump getting out to 6.11m before launching the Shot to 9.69m, improving his previous mark by seventy one centimetres. Next up was his strongest individual event, the High Jump, where a clearance of 1.86m equalled his previous best. Day one ended with the 400m and again Ben set another PB crossing the finish line in 56.21 seconds, an improvement of over a second on the mark he set at the Liverpool event. Overall he was in tenth place going into the second day.
Day two started well for Ben with a two tenths improvement on his previous best over the 110m Hurdles, dipping past the line in 16.58 seconds. A 27.13m Discus throw was followed by a 3.60m Pole Vault. An excellent Javelin throw of 43.45m, his second furthest throw ever, moved him into eighth place going into the final 1500m. Ben has been working on his speed endurance recently and the additional tempo runs in training led to an nine second improvement in the 1500m. His time of 5:05:77 consolidated his eighth position and was just reward for the hard work and effort he has put into his preparation this past few months.
AVEAC’s only other representative at the the ESAA event was Imogen Laugharne. Struggling with a mild hip injury this past few weeks, she did not feel right during the warm up for the first event of the Heptathlon, the 80m Hurdles and made the sensible decision to withdraw. Obviously disappointed, Imogen showed her character by staying on to support her three other teammates from Derbyshire. Hopefully a good rest and some rehabilitation on the injury will have her back soon firing on all cylinders.
Club Championships this Saturday
The Club’s annual championships take place this Saturday at the Rutland Track. Normal training is cancelled. Under 11s will take part in a Quadkids competition while U13s, 15s and 17s will do three events, a Run, a Jump and a Throw. The field events will take place in the morning with track races scheduled for early afternoon. Athletes are reminded to arrive in good time to register, collect numbers and warm up. The morning field events will start at 10am. Club championship medals will be awarded to the top three boys and girls in each of the different age groups.
Words – Joe McColgan
Photo – Matt Hayes, Derbyshire Schools Athletic Association
Words – Joe McColgan
Photo – Matt Hayes, Derbyshire Schools Athletic Association