ESAA Combined Events National Final

International Stadium Bedford

Saturday 15^th & 16^th Sunday September 2018

The English Schools Athletics Association staged their National Combined Events Championships at the Bedford International Stadium with the top athletes in the under 15, under 17 & under 19 age groups vying for medals in the last major event of the track and field season. Previously the event has seen athletes of the calibre of Jessica Ennis- Hill and Katarina Johnson- Thompson amongst the entrants and this year’s championships lived up to its billing as the leading multi-events competition staged in England in 2018. 3 athletes from Humberside Schools qualified for the championships with outstanding performances in the North Eastern Regional finals held in June. All 3 are members of Kingston upon Hull AC with one in each of the female age groups.

An early morning start greeted the senior girl heptathletes with Kingston’s Venus Morgan taking to the track in the fastest heat of the 100m hurdles – her strongest event on paper. Venus produced an outstanding performance clocking 14.58 sec, a mere 0.01 sec outside her best ever time. Significantly this was the second fastest time recorded by any of the 32 strong field, gaining 898 points on the scoring tables. With such an encouraging start it was no great surprise to see Venus equal her lifetime best when she moved on to the high jump, clearing 1.59m to add a further 724 points to her total. Such was the overall standard in the event Venus slipped 2 places down the table after 2 events. An outstanding day continued with a new lifetime best in the shot – 9.89m for 522 points and a season’s best of 25.88 sec (808 points) in the final event of day 1, the 200m. This maintained 4^th spot for the Wyke College athlete, just 100 points outside the medal places but 400 points clear of the 5^th placed athlete. A good start to day 2 was essential to keep Venus in contention and she obliged with a leap of 5.44m in the long jump to accrue a further 683 points. Unfortunately for Venus her main rival for the bronze medal Jenna Blundell (Avon Schools) produced a huge personal best of 5.89m to stretch her lead over the Humberside athlete by a further 130 points and take a firm grip on a podium place. Undaunted Venus produced solid performances in the final 2 events, 26.69m (414 points) in the javelin and 2:32.42 (663 points) in the 800m to set a new personal best score of 4,712 point to retain her 4^th position, maintaining the overnight gap of some 400 points over the 5^th placed athlete. As an added bonus the score is a new club record, beating her own total of 4,687 points which she set when finishing 5^th in the England Athletics Championships at the same venue earlier in the season. 17 year old Venus is now placed 11^th in the UK Under 20 heptathlon rankings with only 3 girls in their first year in the age group ahead of her.

Becky Chivers returned to Bedford just 3 weeks after achieving what was probably her best ever result – 4^th place in the under 17 women’s javelin – at the England Athletics Championships. The Hymers College student had to wait until the 2^nd day of competition to tackle her favourite event and started day 1 with a time of 13.53 sec in the 80m hurdles, scoring 616 points. Becky was disappointed with slightly below par performances of 1.59 in the high jump (399 points) and 9.19m in the shot (477 points) but she battled on and recorded a season’s best of 29.39 sec in the 200m, despite facing a fairly strong head wind which chose an unfortunate time to spring up. The 526 points earned brought her total to 2,018 after 4 events, giving her 41^st place. As with the senior girls the intermediates began their 2^nd day with the long jump where Becky added 374 points to her total from a jump of 4.28m before moving on to the javelin, a golden opportunity for Becky to climb up the table. She wasted no time in imposing herself on the competition with a huge lifetime best of 41.10m with her first throw – almost 2 metres further than her previous best. Not only did this add 688 points to her total but it also moved her up to 16^th place in the UK under 17 rankings. Now in 35^th place in the heptathlon Becky was in no mood to relinquish this and battled her way to a 2:42.49 800m (545 points) to retain her place, her final score of 3,625 points falling just 20 short of her personal best from earlier in the season.

Under 15’s athlete, Lauren McClean has been with Kingston since 2014. Her strongest events have always been the hurdles, long jump, and high jump. Her coach saw a budding combined eventer and worked hard with Lauren throughout the winter of 2017/18. She made good progress and in June of this year, she competed in her first ever combined events competition, at the English Schools North Eastern championships, in Middlesbrough. She put in an outstanding performance, finishing in 2nd place in the pentathlon and qualified for the finals, at Bedford in September. It was a very nervous Lauren who lined up at Bedford, in company with all of the finest pentathletes and heptathletes in the country. She was worried about her lack of experience at a big competition. She was the 3rd place finisher in her 75 metre hurdles race, running a time of 12.33 sec, just 3/100ths outside of her PB and she was happy with the race. She struggled in the shot, which isn’t her favourite event. She put in two no throws, but salvaged matters, with a throw of 6.28 metres, which saw her add to her points tally. She cleared a height of 1.50 metres in the high jump, which left her a little disappointed, knowing she was capable of going higher. The long jump competition caused difficulties for all of the jumpers, who were running into a head wind. She put in a leap of 4.12 metres, In the final event of the competition, the 800 metres race, she took 7th place in the two lap race, where she ran a time of 2:46.24 sec. Her points total for the heptathlon was 2387, which saw her finish in 39th place.

Lauren’s overall view of her first National combined events final was. ‘I really enjoyed the whole experience, I m looking forward to the next one’.