English Schools Combined Events Championships
Exeter – Saturday 17th/Sunday 18th September 2016
Kingston upon Hull’s leading combined eventer saved one of her best ever performances for her final event of a long season when setting a new club and county under 17 heptathlon record at the English Schools Championships in Exeter. In what was probably the highest quality event of its kind in the history of the event 12 athletes achieved a score of more than 4,500 points, the UK Athletics target to achieve top 10 status in the event throughout the season. Despite an outstanding 2 days of competition Venus narrowly missed this, finishing 13th with 4,487 points, 121 more than her previous best.
A strong start to the competition came in Venus’ favourite event, the 80m hurdles. A time of 11.93 sec collected 808 points and placed her 6th of the 42 competitors from all over England. Better was to follow in the high jump where a personal best of 1.59m maintained her 6th spot and added 724 points to her total. Despite one of her best ever results in the shot, a putt of 10.44m (558 points) Venus slipped back to 10th spot after 3 events. However, another personal best, this time a speedy 26.51 sec in the 200m (753 points) saw a rise up the table to 7th place at the end of a tiring first day.
Day 2 began with the only disappointing performance of the weekend with a long jump of 4.88m being well below her best. Despite a number of the other leading contenders also under-performing Venus dropped back to 12th spot, collecting 527 points for her efforts. A strong reaction to the disappointment then followed in the javelin, where Venus maintained the progress she has made throughout the season. A big personal best of 28.25m added 444 points to the overall tally but such was the overall quality of throwing that Venus fell back to 14th place with one event remaining. Yet another personal best rounded off the weekend, Venus clocking 2:31.56 in the 800m to climb one place in the overall standings.
Remaining in the same age group in 2017 Venus will have ambitions to improve on her outstanding results from this year which have seen her reaching an English Schools hurdles final and collecting representative honours in the UK School Games in addition to her heptathlon achievements. A well-earned end of season break is next on her agenda before preparation for next season begins.
