National Combined Events Gold for Aiden
At the England Athletics Senior Combined Events Championships held at the EIS, 
Sheffield this weekend, Aiden Davies performed superbly and came away as National U23 Heptathlon champion.
Over the weekend Aiden achieved lifetime personal best performances in 5 of the 7 events and scored a massive overall PB of 5,242 points, 237 better than his previous best that he scored last year.
This was enough for him to win the U23 age group, 211 points ahead of the 2nd placed athlete and Aiden’s training partner from Leeds, James Finney.
He was also placed in 3rd overall with a Senior National Bronze medal for his efforts. The overall winner was former Doncaster AC athlete Liam Ramsey who scored 5,758 which put him 7th in the All Time UK rankings for the Indoor Heptathlon.
Aiden’s weekend started well with a PB 60 m sprint time of 7.13 seconds ( 0.11 seconds better than his previous best of 7.24). This was the third fastest time posted from a starting field of 37 athletes.
In the Long Jump, Aiden managed three good jumps with best of 6.82m, 4cms better than his PB that he set 2 years ago. Aiden dropped to 4th place overall after the Long jump.
The Shot Putt, usually a good event for Aiden put him back into 3rd place overall with another PB throw of 12.66m (12cms better than his outdoor best of 12.54 and 27cms better than his indoor PB).
Day one ended with the High Jump, an event that Aiden had only had a couple of 
training sessions in over the last 6 months due to injuries, so he started with a certain trepidation, particularly as there were a few athletes in the field that had jumped over 2.00 metres. In the end, it was only Liam Ramsay that broke the 2.00 barrier with a jump of 2.02. Aiden himself managed to equal his PB of 1.90m and was very close to clearing 1.93m.
This left him placed overnight in overall 3rd place behind eventual winner Liam Ramsey, and U23 athlete Anthony Hogg from Gateshead who had an equally good first day as Aiden.
Day 2 started with the event that Aiden was dreading, the 60m hurdles. Again injury
has stopped Aiden competing and training in this event much over the last year, and it was an event that he knew he was much behind his rivals in terms of potential performance. As it was, he had a very tidy race just a little slower than the PB he set at this event last year, with a time of 8.92 secs.
His main rival, Hogg, unfortunately had to pull out of the competition before the hurdles, so after 5 events, Aiden lead the U23 age group and was 3rd overall still.
The next event, the Pole Vault once again proved to be a very good event, where Aiden vaulted up to a PB height of 4.20m. He did however drop one place overall and the passed in the U23 competition by Birchfield athlete, Matthew Lee. Unfortunately though, on Matthew’s last vault, attempting a height of 4.50m, he dislocated his shoulder which put him out of the competition.
This just left Aiden needing to run a reasonable time in the 1000m, an event he has
always been strong in, to win the U23 competition, and sure enough he followed the overall winner and silver medallist over the line with the 3rd quickest time of 2.43 mins.
Aiden is now reining National U23 Indoor and Outdoor Combined events champion.
This now leaves him in prime position for selection by the GB Athletics team to compete in an International competition in Spain in February.
So good luck to him and fingers crossed for his second GB vest.