A total of 16 Oxfordshire athletes had been selected for this year’s regional event however due to illness and injury regrettably only 12 made it to the start line in Banbury.
Junior Boys
The Junior Boys (U15) kicked off the competition with Emmanuel Ofori, Kyle McLeod and Kyle Rayson forming one of only 3 teams we would put out this year this year. The boys all had PB’s (not unexpected with a huge following wind) in the first event the 80 mt hurdles and as expected Kyle Rayson won his heat and was the quickest of all the boys so led the whole competition leading into the shot.
Both Kyle’s went on to have shot PB’s and Emmanuel put in a solid performance backing them up. On to the long jump where no PB’s were recorded despite a howling gale blowing! Emmanuel unfortunately recorded no height in the high jump which effectively put paid to any hopes of team success. However Kyle Rayson did finish 2nd with another PB of 1.56mts. Ironically both Emmanuel and Kyle McLeod went on and had huge PB’s in the 800 mts but Kyle Rayson was a little outside his. Kyle Rayson finished 4th overall and in so doing gained a place in the National finals in Bedford in September. The team finished a very creditable 3rd.
Senior Girls
Next up were the Senior girls and Iona Irvine was our only representative as injury and a call up for the British Champs had taken the rest of the team away. Iona had high expectations as she had shown herself to be extremely competent across all the events in the heptathlon. First came the 100 mt hurdles. After a great start Iona led the field until disaster struck at the 7th hurdle where she tripped. Recovering she then smashed through hurdle 8 but unfortunately the race was over. Valiantly she did complete the event and so left herself the opportunity to still make the finals in Bedford. With due aplomb she literally picked herself up and won the high jump with a new PB of 1.65 mts! She was back in the race! Shot came next and although a little off her best she maintained 3rd place overall with a solid performance. The final event on Day 1 was the 200 mts and to complete her days resurrection she won with a new PB and led all the others by almost 2 seconds! Day 2 started with the long jump and a solid performance led to Iona moving into 2 nd place – a phenomenal recovery after the disastrous day one start. Better was to follow however as she increased her javelin PB by 2 mts almost definitely securing her finals place with only the 800 mts to come. Her main rival would need to beat her by almost 12 seconds to oust her from 2 nd place and whilst the opposition tried hard Iona finished her competition with a solid performance and was only 6 seconds behind securing our second finals individual spot.
Inter Boys
Again due to illness we had no team in this category but the two remaining contenders Archie Street and Nulam Hang Kambang showed what could have been had we just had that 3rd member. Archie started a little tentatively as he also had, had injury worries and so did not push it too far in the long jump – he was a mere 10 cms off his PB though and this was good enough for a win in the first event. A solid jump from Nulam saw him start his comp in 4th overall. The discus and javelin followed and Archie won both events increasing his PB’s in both. Nulam did enough to maintain his 4th place. The 400 mts was the last of day one events in the Octathlon and unsurprisingly Archie stormed out to a massive PB of 52.2 sec to end the day as he started as number 1! Day 2 started with both boys having 100 mt hurdles PB’s and so again Archie stayed out in front despite his main rival winning and beating him by some 0.8 sec. However, Archies main event was still to come and so it occurred he won the high jump equalling his 1.80 mt PB. Nulam also equalled his PB and maintained 4th place overall. The penultimate event was the shot put and the light that had yet to emerge suddenly exploded from Nulam as he smashed his PB by almost a metre to win the competition!! With just the 1500 mts to go both boys looked in good shape and as expected Archie went out and won the event and with that the whole competition definitely securing his place in the finals. Nulam eventually finished 5th and whilst he didn’t secure an automatic spot may get a call up as one of the 9 best athletes outside of a team across England – we wait to see.
Inter Girls
Hopes for success in this event were high as Charlotte Bigmore, Charlotte Ashby and Annie Jonkers had a great repertoire across all of the 7 heptathlon events. According to the script all 3 girls had hurdle PB’s to ensure a great start to the competition. The high jump was next and whilst Charlotte Bigmore had a PB the others were just a centimetre or two off theirs. This sequence was repeated in the next event the shot, Charlotte Bigmore again having a PB and the others slightly down on either PB or SB. But good enough to keep the team in the fight for 2nd place. The final event on day 1 is the 200 mts. This time all 3 girls performed as expected securing 3 PB’s and closing day 1 in second team place with Charlotte B in 4th overall and Annie and Charlotte A in 5th and 6th. Although the team ahead was some 600 points clear the girls all have great 2nd day events and so hopes were high that the gap could be closed. Day 2 started with the long jump and as with all the other long jumps over the weekend everone was slightly off their best. Solid performances however meant that no ground was lost to Derby the leading team. Annie and Charlotte A lived upto their billing as good javelin throwers finishing 2nd and 3rd in the event but into a 4.0 mps headwind distances across the board where well down. The gap on Derby was however now down to a ‘doable’ distance provided we could have the 800 mts run we thought was required to beat Derby. With all 3 girls in the ‘A’ race it was clear that team tactics would mean that if they could stay close all would be well. Unfortunately, Annie succumbed to dehydration on the second lap and fell to the floor. All was not lost however as she recovered momentarily and finished the race to ensure the team completed all events – the time was not kind to us however and so Derby ended winning the team competition. A light on the horizon however as for the second year running Charlotte Bigmore secured an individual place at the nationals as she finished 3rd overall and had a huge 800 mt PB to look back on.
Junior Girls
Three ‘newbies’ entered the affray for Oxon Schools in the Junior Girls pentathlon. Kimberley Gladwell, Sophie Winpenny and Gracie Wilson started with the 75 mt hurdles and all three performed well with Kimberley winning her heat in a new PB. The shot followed and again all 3 performed well. Sophie had a high jump SB with the other two both having PB’s
In the 4th event Gracie had a long jump PB and the other two performed up to their standard so all onward to the final event the 800 mts. Gracie and Sophie both had PB’s and Kimberley went on to win her heat but just missed out on a 3rd PB. The team really enjoyed themselves and as first years will, I’m sure, be back to do battle next year in Derby. The team finished a very creditable 4th place with individual results being – Sophie 14th, Kimberley 12th and Gracie 11th.
Well done to all the athletes and so we take 4 to the finals in Bedford with the possibility they will be joined by Eloise Hind fresh from her 3rd place at the British Champs heptathlon. All the individual results are on the Power of 10.
Pete O’Keefe
CE Schools TM
Photos can be found here