English Schools Track & Field Championships

Alexander Stadium, Birmingham

Friday 13^th & Saturday 14^th July 2018

The English Schools Athletics Association staged their 88^th annual track & field championships at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium with 45 counties and over 1,800 athletes contesting events in the under 15, under 17 & under 19 age groups with over 15 hours of competition over the 2 days. With temperatures in the mid to upper 20s conditions were extremely testing but the usual high level of performance was evident from the outset with numerous championship best performances being set and a number of the stars of the future in British athletics coming to prominence.

Ten Kingston athletes were members of the County team which travelled down to Birmingham on Thursday the 12th of July.  Over the following two days of competition seven of them competed in their event finals and three of the athletes took their place on the podium. Bringing a gold medal and two bronze medals, back home with them to Costello.

Hammer thrower Olivia Stevenson made her English schools debut in 2013 in the junior girl’s discus competition, there being no hammer competition in her age category. The following year saw her take the hammer silver medal and further silvers came at the 2015 and 2016 championships, followed by a bronze in 2017. This year’s event saw her in action in the senior girls final where she faced stiff competition from Anna Purchase of Nottinghamshire and an old rival, Tara Simpson-Sullivan of Wigan & District. It was a good close contest where Olivia pulled out a season’s best throw of 56.47 metres to take a well deserved gold medal at the biggest junior and youth competition in the UK.

Shaun Kerry the 2016 junior hammer champion, was involved in an outstanding intermediate boys final, which saw the lead changing hands several times during the course of the competition. 13 athletes contested the final, but Shaun together with Kenneth Ikeji of Basildon and Sam Gaskell of Blackburn made it a three man competition for the medals with the rest of the field 8 metres behind them. Shaun threw a new PB of 68.05 metres in the final round which secured him the bronze medal, Kenneth Ikeji  took the silver with a new PB of 68.31 metres and Sam Gaskell the gold with a new PB of 68.75 metres.

Discus thrower Joshua Tranmer made his bow at the 2014 championships where he took 13th place. 2015 saw him improve on his debut year, taking 9th place and in 2016 he was the bronze medallist. Last year he was the 7th place finisher and he was determined to do better at the 2018 event. Improve he certainly did, taking the bronze medal with his throw of 43.24 metres.

Venus Morgan (Wyke College) was making her 4^th appearance at these championships. Previously a finalist in the intermediate girls 80m hurdles she ran a superb heat of the senior girls 100m hurdles, finishing 3^rd in a personal best time of 14.57 to progress to the final. An added bonus for Venus was that her time beat her existing club record set earlier in the season. Unfortunately this was run into a fairly strong headwind meaning that times were not as quick, however Venus produced another solid performance to finish 7^th in 14.83 sec, only 0.44 sec behind the winner, Hertfordshire’s Emily Russell. With the top 3 athletes being in their final year in the age group Venus will be looking forward to next year’s championships, also to be held in Birmingham prior to the stadium being rebuilt for the 2022 Commonwealth Games , with aims of finishing her school career with her best ever placing.

Jodie Martin (South Holderness Technology College) has appeared at the English Schools Cross Country Championships on 3 occasions but this was her first taste of track competition at this level. With personal bests every time out over 800m so far this season Jodie went into the under 17 girls 800m in fine form. She knew however that yet another lifetime best would be needed to progress through the heats with only the first 2 girls in each of the 3 first round races plus the next 2 fastest times making the final. Running a fine tactical race Jodie came through the field in the last 250 metres to take 3^rd place to take the last available spot in the final in a time of 2:14.15 sec, almost a second faster than her existing best which also stood as the club record. Coming back the following day after such a fast race was a new experience for Jodie but she put in another determined performance to cross the line in 7^th place in 2:16.18 sec, the title going to Gloucestershire’s Annie Testar in 2:09 74 sec.

Training partners Alanah Thoresby (South Hunsley School & 6^th Form College) and Ellie Townsend (Kelvin Hall School) both represented Humberside in the intermediate (under17) girls high jump. Both in their first year in the age group achieving the entry standard was an outstanding achievement for the girls, justifying regular trips to Sheffield & Wakefield for their technical training sessions. In the qualifying pool Alanah cleared 1.55m at the first attempt before narrowly failing at 1.60m where a clearance would have seen her progress to the final. Unfortunately Ellie also failed to make the final but both girls will hope to return to Birmingham next year when they will hope that another year’s training & experience will see them improve on their 2018 placings.

Ben Copley made his English schools debut at the 2016 championships where he was the silver medallist in the junior boys discus. The 2017 discus event saw him win the gold medal and stand at the top of the rostrum as the new English schools champion. At the 2018 championships he was once again involved in the mix for the discus medals, as always he competed well but this year had to settle for 4th place in the final with his throw of 44.38 metres.

Holly Adams made her debut appearance at the 2017 championship meeting where she had finished in 8th place in the junior girls discus. She was determined to improve on last years placing. Holly put in a solid performance and was in contention for the medals, she threw a new PB of 30.83 metres, an improvement of 1.36 metres which placed her 4th just 85 centimetres away from the bronze medal.

Sprinter David Morgan-Harrison made his debut appearance at the championships. The county silver medallist was in competition in the 100 metres sprints. He was drawn in heat 4 where he took 8th place, running a time of 11.60 sec, which was not enough to qualify for the later rounds.