Kingston upon Hull’s long-serving pole vault specialist Clare Blunt was rewarded for her outstanding silver medal performance in the recent England Athletics Championships in Bedford with a call up for the International Select team to compete in the prestigious Manchester International meeting at Sports City. Her vault of 3.85m at Bedford failed to match her lifetime best of 4.00m which she recently achieved when competing for her higher status club Enfield & Haringey in the UK Women’s League but was still sufficient to give her one of the best results of her career, with only established GB international Jade Ive (Shaftsbury Barnet AC) ahead of her.
Unfortunately the vaulters were met with cool and very blustery conditions in Manchester meaning that performance levels were well below what would have been expected. The event was won by Molly Caudery representing Great Britain under 20s with a winning height of 4.15m, 20cm below her recently set personal best. Clare cleared 3.65m to finish 7th in the competition, her first at such a high level and hopefully a springboard to bigger heights in the future.
