Ella Rush made an excellent start to her US collegiate Pentathlon debut by finishing 3rd with a score of 4100 points at the Texas Tech Open and Multi Event meeting held in Lubbock, Texas on Friday last. The score was good enough to place her first on the Power of Ten UK rankings at Under 20 level and was a top ten all-time score at the University of Georgia where she is on a four year athletics scholarship. Ella’s personal best in the indoor pentathlon is 4365 points which she set when winning the British Senior title last year and this latest score does suggest that she is in good form and progressing well towards improving her all time points tally later in this indoor season.
The first event of the five disciplines was the 60m Hurdles in which Ella didn’t get the greatest of starts, recording a time of 8.90 seconds, placing her thirteenth out of the seventeen strong field. Two solid performances in the High Jump, clearing 1.69m and Shot Put where she threw 12.13m moved her up the field. An excellent Long Jump of 6.07m, the second furthest in the competition, pushed her into third position. She then went on to run 2:22:76 in the final 800m discipline consolidating her third place standing overall. The event winner was Camryn Newton Smith (Arkansas State) on 4356 points with Kristine Blazevica (Texas) in runner up spot just over a hundred points ahead of Ella on 4224. As well as topping the Power of Ten Pentathlon standings in the UK with her final score, Ella’s Long Jump also places her first in that event across the home nations.
Her main aim for the indoor season is to reach the finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championships on 10-11 March in Albuquerque, New Mexico where the top sixteen scoring pentathletes across the United States will face each other for the national crown. She will probably undertake one more Pentathlon before that at the South East Conference Championships at Fayetteville, Arkansas on 24-25 February which will hopefully ensure qualification for the national event.
Words – Joe McColgan
Photos – Caroline Rush and @UGATrack on Twitter (High Jump)