Over the weekend of 11th & 12th of January the Northern Athletics Senior, U20 and U17 Indoor Championships 2025 were held at the EIS, Sheffield. A total of six AVEAC athletes donned their yellow vests over the course of the two days, all competing admirably and recording a number of personal and season best performances. However, the standout moment of the weekend was Ben Pitts’ triumph, as he clinched the gold medal in the high jump, earning himself the title of Northern Indoor High Jump Champion.
Competing against two other 2m+ jumpers the three athletes were locked in battle in an exciting competition. Ben opened at 1.80m with a first time clearance and went on to jump 1.85m, 1.90m and 1.95m in the same fashion. However, this was matched by his competitors, with all three athletes having identical records as the bar was raised to 2m. All three participants failed their first two attempts at this new height. Ben’s two opponents also missed their third and final attempts, leaving him with the knowledge that clearing his final jump would secure the gold medal, whilst failure would lead to a three-way jump-off. Ben however has shown in the past that he is not fazed in moments of pressure, and true to form he cleared the bar by a country mile to claim the top step of the podium. An ideal boost for him going into the following weekend where he would be competing in a heptathlon at the England Athletics Senior & U20 Indoor Combined Event Championships.
Over the course of the weekend Ben also competed in the pole vault, finishing in fourth place having cleared a height of 4m.
The five other AVEAC members that made the short journey up the M1 to Sheffield to compete over the course of the two days were; Ailsa McMillan, Jasmine Shore and Madeleine Turner in the Under 17 Women category, Nicole Bonser in the Under 20 Women category and George Reynolds in the Senior Men age category.
In the Under 17 Women category, Ailsa raced to an indoor PB of 50.85 seconds as she finished fifth in her 300m heat, and leapt 4.14m to finish eighth in group B of the long jump competition, nineteenth overall. Jasmine was just one hundredth of a second off her PB in the 200m, crossing the line in 28.35 seconds to finish fifth in her heat. Jas did however secure herself a new PB in the shot put, throwing a distance of 8.31m to beat her previous best by 82cm. Entering the 800m event, Madeleine recorded a time of 2:20.10 to finish fourth in her heat, and in doing so qualified for the final. Madeleine ran a very similar time of 2:20.21 in the final, once again finishing in fourth place. Nicole, competing in the Under 20 Women long jump, recorded a best jump of 4.70m to finish in seventh place in group A of the competition, and tenth place overall. George jumped a best of 6.12m as he finished in 6th place in the Senior Men long jump competition.
Report – Ian Pitts & Dan Humphrey, Photo & Video – Ian Pitts