Under 13s Kent Pentathlon Championships – Monday 27th August, Dartford
The Kent U13s pentathlon championships were held alongside the Dartford open meeting, (please see Wole’s upcoming report for more information on the open event), but a massive well done to Cerys Daniels, (the sole Cambridge Harriers representative) for winning bronze medal and 3rd place in the Kent U13s Girls Pentathlon Championships with a score of 1792 points, luckily under much nicer weather conditions than we were presented with over the weekend. Her 3rd place saw her gain two fantastic new PBs in both the HJ (with a jump of 1.33m) and the 800m where she had a fantastic race and knocked 9 seconds off her PB in a time of 3.00.13 and at the end of a gruelling day, well done! It is a shame that we didn’t have more athletes competing in both events over the bank holiday weekend really, as we certainly have the numbers and we have the talent. Cerys really enjoyed the whole day, made new friends and gained valuable and fantastic experience. Her individual event results were as follows:-
England Athletics U15 / U17 Championships, Bedford, 25-26 August
The England Championships saw the whole of Cambridge Harriers AC represented by just five athletes who met the qualifying criteria and entered for their individual events, and even though the weather was absolutely abysmal to say the least, with Sunday in particular being practically a complete wash out, the athletes still took the journey down to Bedford International Stadium to represent the club and gain fantastic experience. First up were our two U15s race walkers, Hannah Atkinson in the 3000 walk where she took 3rd place and a fantastic new PB of 18.49.43, and Alex Macheath in the U15s boys 3000 walk who unfortunately picked up a disqualification and was stopped mid-race, no doubt lots of experience was gained and lessons will have been learnt. In the U17s girls 5000 walk we picked up a silver and a bronze medals with Lucy Lewis Ward’s 30.51.47 time and Hannah Hopper’s great new PB of 31.57.83 so well done in such awful conditions.
On the field on Sunday afternoon Kacey Walters took part in the U15 girls high jump in the most appalling conditions I’ve ever experienced, and although slightly disappointed with her 1.51m 9th placing, had to be reminded that she was one of only 2 first year under 15 girls taking part in the event, and in doing so gained great experience for next year when she will be a second year under 15. At one point the rain and wind were so bad that the organisers were considering calling it off, (as they had done with the pole vault), but hats off to all the high jumpers as they persevered and carried on and did the best that they could do in the conditions they were presented with (although I’m sure not an experience they would wish to repeat!), and that goes out to all the jumpers who by the end of the competition were absolutely drenched and freezing. Video footage of one of Kacey’s jumps in the wet conditions, is shown below.