England Athletics Indoor Championships

Under 15’s – Under 17’s – Under 20’s

 EIS Stadium Sheffield,

Saturday 24^th & Sunday 25^th February 2018

Eight Kingston athletes were in competition at the England age group championships which were held at the English Institute of Sports Stadium in Sheffield over the weekend of the 24^th and 25^th of February.

Holly Adams had her second competitive outing of 2018 at these championships where she was in action in the under15 girls shot putt, she had already won the bronze medal at the same venue at January’s Northern Championship meeting and was hoping that all the hard work she had done in the training and conditioning sessions throughout the autumn and winter period would stand her in good stead, and now she would try to make her mark on the national stage. She has won five Northern championship medals at both indoor and at track & field meetings could she do it at the next level. The under 15’s shot competition took place on the Saturday, the first day of the championships and there were some talented throwers in what was a strong competitive field. Holly pulled out a new personal best throw of 11.13 metres to secure the silver medal going 37 centimetres beyond her old best which she had set when winning the bronze just 3 weeks earlier at the Northerns.

14 year old Daisy Logan made her debut on the national stage in Sheffield and belied her inexperience with three outstanding performances. The talented all-rounder contested the sprint events after recording a very promising 5^th place over 60m in the recent Northern indoor championships. She took 2^nd place in her heat over the same distance, her time of 8.15 sec taking 0.02 sec off her previous best. With the first 2 athletes in each heat progressing to the semi-final  Daisy took to the track again a couple of hours later and again reduced her lifetime best, stopping the clock at 8.13 sec to finish 5^th and narrowly miss progressing to the final. She was back again the following day to tackle the 200m with the tight bends and banked track definitely favouring athletes with regular access to full indoor facilities. With only 2 previous outings on such a track Daisy produced another outstanding run to clock her third personal best of the weekend – her 26.60 sec being faster than she has run on the less taxing outdoor track. The standard was so high that even with such a performance Daisy placed 4^th in her heat and failed to progress to the later rounds.

Another promising combined event athlete Alanah Thoresby competed in the under 17 high jump – her first championship appearance in the age group after a highly successful under 15 campaign in 2017. With the jumpers having to fit in their attempts in between sprint hurdles races and with the pole vaulters also crossing the jumping area on their run ups concentration was at a premium and Alanah did well to match her season’s best of 1.55m for 14^th place. She will shortly return to Sheffield to contest the England Athletics indoor pentathlon championship before turning her attention to the outdoor season.

The EIS is almost a second home to Kingston’s heptathlete Venus Morgan who has appeared at championship level at both under 15 & under 17 levels in the past. Now a first year under 20 Venus missed progressing from the heats of the 60m hurdles by less than 0.1 sec when finishing 4^th in 9.13 sec, just outside her lifetime best. Sam Croney also contested the 60m hurdles, this time in the under17 mens event. After clocking an outstanding personal best of 8.86 sec at the same venue recently Sam had the misfortune to hit one of the early hurdles and almost come to a standstill. He managed to stay on his feet and finish the race in 6^th place in 9.42 sec but failed to qualify from the heats.

The 2016 English Schools hammer champion Shaun Kerry is also a very good shot putter and currently stands at number 7 in the UK shot rankings. At last year’s County championship meeting he won three titles, hammer, shot and javelin. For safety reasons there are no long throws at indoor competitions in the UK, so his only event at this meeting was the shot. The top three ranked shot putters in the UK were in action and they took the three medals with Shaun throwing a new personal best of 13.59 metres to take 4^th place, adding another 36 centimetres to his old PB which he set at the Northern championships this January.

2018 has seen sprinter David Morgan-Harrison move up from the under 17’s to his first year as an under 20 athlete, the England championship meeting was his third competitive outing of this year. The County 200 metre champion was in action in the 60 metre sprints and he was drawn to run in the third of the seven heats where he was a 5^th place finisher running a new PB of 7.39 sec clipping 0.16 of a second off his old time which he set at the Northern’s in January, but his time was not enough to progress further.

Robert Tweedale is another first year under 20 and this was his third competitive outing of the year, he won both the County and County schools 400 metre titles in both 2016 and 2017. He competed in the 400 metres event where he was seeded to run in the first of the heats where his time of 52.87 sec, which gave him a 6^th place finish was not enough to get him in to the next round of races.