Daisy Kaye has been in phenomenal form so far this year and the outdoor season is barely a month old. During the Charnwood Open on Sunday at the Paula Ratcliffe Track, Loughborough, she threw her third Javelin personal best in a row following marks of 35.76m and 37.41m at meetings held in Nuneaton in March and early April. The distance this time was just short of 40 metres and as well as winning the event, it also gained her the qualification standard for the prestigious English Schools Championships in late June. With steely determination the Under 17 thrower launched the 500 gram Javelin out to 39.74m in round two adding another couple of metres on to her previous best. Daisy has worked extremely hard during the off season and these recent personal bests are richly deserved. She will be all out now to break that 40 metre barrier and with the form she is showing at the moment, it should not be too long!
Senior Javelin thrower Jessie Brown was also in action at Loughborough, eleven days after her exceptional efforts at the recent DADA Meeting in Derby. This time round she was slightly down on the 47.55m distance set at the Moorways meet. Nevertheless she produced another excellent throw of 45.77m to place second in the Senior Women’s event. Jessie is showing a fantastic level of consistency at the moment as she approaches the main season and major championships.
AVEAC were well represented in the three Long Jump competitions at the meeting. In the Women and Girls ‘less than 4 metres’ pool, ten year old Summer Biggs set a new personal best of 3.72m beating her previous mark set indoors at Sheffield in January by one centimetre.
In the ‘over 4 metres pool’, AVEAC had Nicole Bonser (U20), Grace Young (U20) and Scarlett Beddoe (U17) in action. The AVEAC trio were in a top class field that included a couple of England’s top Long Jump exponents, Brooke Ironside (Bournmouth), the British Universities indoor silver medalist and Phoebe Clayton (Rushcliffe), the 2022 English School’s Intermediate Champion. Nicole finished sixth with a best of 4.81m, Grace was fifth jumping a new PB of 4.89m and Scarlett placed ninth on 4.27m. The event was won by Ironside on 5.83m ahead of Clayton who jumped 5.73m.
In the Men’s ‘over 5 metres’ pool, George Reynolds started his season in fine style with a excellent distance of 6.41m suggesting that he is in good form as the main season approaches. He finished second behind James Taylor (Windsor, Slough, Eaton and Hounslow), a seven metre jumper, from last season who registered a distance of 6.89m. Also in the field was Corey Tatum (U20) who was marginally short of his previous best on 5.40m.
Senior Decathlete Scott Ram equaled his personal best of 3.60m in the Pole Vault to finish third while second claim AVEAC athlete Izzy Haworth produced a hop, step and jump of 10.15m in the mixed Triple Jump off a shortened run up.
The track events saw AVEAC athletes register several personal bests. Corey Tatum had just finished the Long Jump when the 200m beckoned. He sprinted an excellent half lap, posting a new personal best of 24.18 seconds, placing first in his graded race. Fresh from her Javelin exploits, Daisy Kaye showed that she can sprint a bit as well when finishing fifth in one of the other 200m races in a time of 27.90 seconds. Summer Biggs (U11) claimed a second PB in the 75m dash recording 11.58 seconds while Isla Douglas (U13) ran her fastest ever 100m completing the sprint in 15.31 seconds.
The Carter twins, Lewis and Ellis (U17), had their first runs of the season over the 100m. Lewis finished 3rd in his race in 12.15 seconds while Ellis recorded 12.40 seconds to take sixth place in another heat. Scarlett Beddoe (U17) was also in fine sprinting form and was rewarded with an electronic timed PB of 13.15 seconds when finishing fourth. Prior to his excellent Long Jump, George Reynolds also sped to a time of 11.60 seconds in the fastest 100m graded sprint of the day placing eighth.
In the middle distance 800m races, Eden Klugman (U17) paced himself well in his graded race registering a new best time of 2:29.03 minutes for fifth place. Isla Douglas also produced a personal best in her 800m run crossing the finish in 3:02.68 minutes.
Next up for AVEAC athletes will be the second Mini League match on Saturday 29th April for the younger age groups and the day after the older U17 and U20 athletes will start their Upper Youth Development League campaign in Stoke against teams from Burton, Tamworth, Charnwood, City of Stoke, Derby, Leicester Coritanian and Saffron Athletic Clubs.
Credits
Report – Joe McColgan
Photos – Chris Kirby