England Athletics / Northern Athletics
Indoor Combined Events Championships
EIS Stadium Sheffield – Saturday 6th January 2018
Humberside u17 pentathlon & heptathlon record holder Venus Morgan wasted no time in adding another major medal to her collection when finishing 3rd in the North of England under 20 indoor pentathlon at Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport. 16 year old Venus was competing against athletes up to 3 years older than herself when taking part in her first championship event in her new age group and in addition to her bronze medal at regional level she also finished 11th in the England Athletics national championship held in conjunction.
The day began with an impressive run in the 60 metre hurdles where Venus took 0.2 sec off her previous best to record 9.07 sec (895 points), the 5th fastest time of the day. She followed this up with a solid 1.56m in the high jump, gaining her a further 689 points and 9.31m in the shot (484 points) her first competition at this event with the heavier weight implement used by both under 20 & senior competitors. Despite feeling unwell Venus still managed to produce a long jump of 5.02 metres, adding a further 565 points to her total meaning that with one event to go she was lying in 13th place overall and 3rd in the Northern Championship with a cushion of almost 300 points over the 4th placed athlete, Stockport’s Emily Misantoni. A 2: 39.48 800m time was sufficient to gain 2 places in the table and to leave Venus with a score of 3,212 points. Misantoni, an outstanding 800m runner unsurprisingly closed the gap but fell 50 points short of snatching the bronze medal away from the Cottingham based athlete.
The standard of female combined events still continues to rise with the outstanding Holly Mills (Andover) who last year won the gold medal in the long jump at the Commonwealth Youth Games setting a new championship best performance of 4,049 points – only 40 points fewer than 2012 Olympic champion Jessica Ennis-Hill scored when competing in the under 20 age group in 2005. The Northern title went to Grace Bower (Sale Harriers, Manchester) with a score of 3,701 points with City of York’s Alice Linaker taking silver with 3,677 points.
The same venue will shortly host the North of England Indoor Championships for senior, under 20 & under17 age groups with a number of locally based athletes likely to be vying for places on the rostrum.
