England Athletics Under 15/17/20 Indoor Championships, Sheffield – 10&11 February
AVEAC ace triple jumper Michelle Yalekhue took the gold medal at last weekend’s England Championships. The under 20 athlete led the competition throughout and her third and sixth round efforts of 12.25m secured a well deserved gold medal ahead of Hope Yelling (Worthing & District) and Julie-Anne Boachie (Loughborough Students) who finished in the silver and bronze positions.
This is Michelle’s first national title and bettered her bronze postion in the same event last year. Last Summer she also went on to achieve further outdoor bronze medals at the English Schools finals and England Championships.
After Michelle’s podium presentation, it was great to meet up with her as her former coach, and present an outstanding AVEAC Achievement Award for last year having not being able to attend the club’s recent presentation evening. She was pleased to receive the award and thanked the club for the recognition.
Now studying at Brunel University, the talented jumper has a busy few weekends ahead of her. This Sunday she will be in action at the UK indoor senior championships in Birmingham and on the following weekend will return to Sheffield to contest the British Univerities and Colleges Championships. We wish her well!
AVEAC’S only other qualifier for the national campionships was Joe Moss in the Boy’s under 15 long jump. Joe dealt with his first national event with a lot of maturity coping well with all the protocol arrangements prior to getting on to the run up. He put a good series of jumps together and finished seventh in a field of twelve young athletes who made the national qualifying standard. His furthest jump was 5.44m, a centimetre behind his personal best. Joe is eligble for this age group next year and hopfully will be pushing further up the finishing order. He was very pleased with his performance and now looks forward to the outdoor season and improving further.
Report and photos – Joe McColgan
Report and photos – Joe McColgan