English Schools Track and Field Championships, Birmingham – June 30 and July 01
Last Friday and Saturday the English Schools Track and Field Championships returned to the Alexander Stadium, Birmingham for the 92nd edition of the famous meeting. It was the first time the event was held in the newly refurbished track, the centrepiece of last year’s Commonwealth Games.
The English School’s is a tough competition to qualify for and has been a stepping stone for many of the country’s leading athletes to go on and achieve Olympic and World titles in the past including the likes of Jessica Ennis-Hill, Greg Rutherford and Dina Asher-Smith. It was fitting that AVEAC had seven athletes among the 1700 selected by their County School’s Athletics Asoociations enabling them to compete against their peers at the highest level. They all performed admirably, with one of the seven gaining a bronze medal, four others finishing in the top eight and two of the group achieving personal bests.
Day 1
The senior girl’s triple jump saw Michelle Yalekhue (Nottinghamshire – Joe McColgan) battle her way to a well deserved bronze medal. Lying in fourth place after four rounds behind Surrey jumper Lia Bonsu who had a best of 12.06m, Michelle posted an effort of 12.09m in round five despite takng off marginally short of the board pushing her into third place. Bonsu was unable to better Michelle’s jump in the final round thus securing a much coveted bronze for the talented jumper. This was Michelle’s third national medal this year following bronze place finishes as well at the England U20 indoor and England U23 outdoor championships.
AVEAC’s second claim athlete, Louise Hirst (Lincolnshire – Joe McColgan) was also taking part in the senior girl’s triple jump. She produced an exceptional series of jumps surpassing her previous personal best of 11.23m in five out of the six rounds. Louise who is eligible for this age group again next year exceeded all expectaions in finishing fifth with a magnificent effort of 11.59m. She was delighted with her performance having been ranked eighth going into the competition.
Daisy Kaye (Nottinghamshire – Scott Knighton) was in action in the intermediate girl’s javelin first thing on Friday morning. With the wind playing havoc with the flight of the javelin and many of the throwers finding their efforts ‘red flagged’ tension was high after the first three rounds when the field was reduced to the top eight athletes. Luckily Daisy’s second round effort of just over 36 metres placed her in seventh position allowing her an extra three throws. Although she was to improve in round five to 38.97m, her overall position remained the same. Daisy was pleased with her performance and is looking forward to the the England under age championships at the end of August when no doubt she will be up there again amongst the best in the country.
Our final competitor on day 1 was 13 year old Madeleine Turner (Derbyshire – Geoff Lowry). The St Benedict’s School student lined up in the heats of the junior girl’s 800m. Running in a large stadium with a few thousand spectators in attendance, Madeleine was not phased by the experience, and ran superably well to break the 2 minute 20 barrier for the first time in heat three of three qualifying rounds. In a hotly contested race in which eventual gold medalist Imogen Hall (Greater Manchester) clocked 2:12.67, Madeleine ran tenaciously to finish in eighth place and was pulled round to a new PB of 2:19.38. She is in the same age group next year and with a sold block of training in the Winter will be vying for a final place next time round.
Our final competitor on day 1 was 13 year old Madeleine Turner (Derbyshire – Geoff Lowry). The St Benedict’s School student lined up in the heats of the junior girl’s 800m. Running in a large stadium with a few thousand spectators in attendance, Madeleine was not phased by the experience, and ran superably well to break the 2 minute 20 barrier for the first time in heat three of three qualifying rounds. In a hotly contested race in which eventual gold medalist Imogen Hall (Greater Manchester) clocked 2:12.67, Madeleine ran tenaciously to finish in eighth place and was pulled round to a new PB of 2:19.38. She is in the same age group next year and with a sold block of training in the Winter will be vying for a final place next time round.
Day 2
A lot has been written about Ben Pitt’s (Derbyshire – Julie Feeney) outstanding performances in recent blogs and his high jumping exploits on Saturday were no different to the previous form he has shown this season so far. We’ve got to remember that Ben is a Decathlete and to finish 4th in the senior boy’s high jump against specialist jumpers shows how exceptional his performance was. He cleared 1.98m and narrowly failed at 2.02m which would have been a new personal best. At last year’s championships he cleared 1.82m when finishing 11th. He has certainly made a lot of progress since then!
Another athlete who has progressed well this year is javelin thrower Freya Kirby (Derbyshire – Scott Knighton). At the 2022 championships in Manchester, she finished 12th in the Junior Girl’s contest with an best throw of 29.38m. This year she improved to fifth launching the 500 gram javelin out to 34.69m. Freya is a talented young performer and is now able to mix it with the best in her age group. Like Daisy Kaye, she too, will be looking forward to making her mark at the England Athletics national championships next month.
Gerorge Reynolds (Derbyshire – Jayesh Dave) lined up for the senior boy’s long jump on Saturday morning. A strong tailwind affected the run ups of several of the jumpers in the competition including George. A foul in the first round was followed by a conservative jump of 6.12m in round 2 placing him tenth. With only eight jumpers going through to the final three rounds, the pressure was on to produce a jump in the 6.40m region to ensure qualification. Unfortunately for George his third round effort was also deemed a foul and he took no further part in the competition. With a personal best of 6.61m set earlier in the season he was obviously disappointed not to progress, when on another day, he coud have been battling for a top six position.
As well as the coaches who have worked hard to prepare the athletes for this level of competition, much credit is also due to the officials at the county school’s athletics associations in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire for the work they put in behind the scenes to ensure the athletes are well supported during the two days of the championships.
Credits
Report – Joe McColgan
Photos – Chris Kirby, Joe McColgan, Sarah Turner