‘Douglas Bedford Memorial Open’

Thornes Park, Wakefield – Sunday 13^th August 2017

Three of Kingstons young athletes travelled over to the West Riding of Yorkshire on the 13^th of August to compete at the annual ‘Douglas Bedford Memorial Open’ meeting which was held at the Thornes Park stadium in Wakefield.

Under 15 athlete Ben Copley has enjoyed another outstanding season in 2017 and his run of championship successes shows no signs of slowing down, the 2016 Northern discus champion and silver medallist at the England championships has already this year taken the javelin, shot and discus titles at both the County and the County Schools championship meetings and he was the winner of the UK Javelin carnival at Loughborough in addition he was crowned the English Schools discus champion at this July’s event.

In 2018 he will be making the move up into the under17 age category and the weights of the shot, discus and javelin that he throws will all increase, he entered in the under 17 discus and javelin competitions at this meeting throwing the 1.5 kilogram discus and 700 gram javelin for the first time. He won both of the competitions and set personal best performances in both events throwing 40.35 metres in the discus and 52.60 metres with the javelin. The 2017 season sees more opportunities on the horizon for Ben with both the Northern championships and the England championships coming up in the next few weeks.

Under17 athlete Jennifer Hopkinson was also in action in Thornes Park continuing her fight back to full fitness after a frustrating last couple of seasons. She competed in the 100 and 200 metre sprint races as well as the shot putt. The 100 metres race saw Jennifer taking 2^nd place and running a time of 13.55 sec and she was the winner of the 200 metres race where she clocked a time of 28.77 sec. In the shot event she threw a new PB of 7.04 metres to take 3^rd place adding 21 centimetres to her previous best distance.

Under 17 Athlete Callum Wilkinson is a former County champion over both the 100 and 300 metre distances and has amassed a total of nine medals at County, County schools and East Riding schools championship meetings. He made the move over from the Hull Achilles club to Kingston earlier this year and he has represented the club in the UK Youth Development league running in the 800 metres and the 4 x 100 metres relay. He ran in the 400 metres race at Wakefield where he was a 2^nd place finisher and recorded a time of 55.69 sec for the one lap race.