National Decathlon Bronze for Aiden in Bedford
Last weekend Aiden Davies competed in the England Senior Combined Events Championships in Bedford, and finished third overall in his first senior Decathlon.
Aiden was the youngest of a large field of 34 athletes who started the weekend’s competition, but was narrowly beaten by two semi-professional athletes and a small margin of 75 points from the winner, and 63 points behind the 2nd placed athlete.
Aiden had a mixed competition of ups and downs, but during the weekend, set 7 outdoor PBs, 5 club records, and finished the competition with a points score of 6,857. He came away with overall Bronze, Northern Silver, BUCS Gold medals for his efforts and was the highest placed U23 athlete.
The competition started with the 100m, where Aiden clocked an electronic PB of 11.20 – the 3rd fastest time of all competitors.
On to the Long Jump, where he had a consistent set of jumps with the longest being an outdoor PB of 6.69, again the third furthest in the competition.
A good solid Shot Putt of 12.40m elevated Aiden into the lead after three events.
The High Jump didn’t go so well and, suffering with inflamed ankle, he struggled with his opening jumps. He did however mange a respectable 1.85m clearance though that kept him in the competition in third place overall.
The final event of the day, the 400m was another strong event for Aiden where he clocked the second fastest time of the day with an outdoor PB of 49.34 secs.
Day two started on a much more sober note with the 110m Hurdles. Aiden narrowly avoided disaster after hitting the third hurdle heavily which really threw him off course. He did however manage to keep going, but finished in a very average time of 16.21 secs, albeit a PB as it was the first time that he had done this event at a Senior height in competition.
The next event, the discus, was a much more successful affair where his opening two throws were both PBs. His best throw of 37.05 metres kept in third overall position.
Onto the Pole Vault, where again he has a bit of a shaky start, but did managed to clear a PB height of 4.10m.
In this event, the guy that beat Aiden into second place overall, Peter Moreno, who has been given a year off from the Army to train full time, set a Nigerian Pole Vault record of 4.60m.
The penultimate event was another one Aiden was dreading, as he had injured his elbow in training a few weeks previously. He didn’t do any warm-up throws and only managed one throw in competition which was a less than impressive 38.41m.
This dropped him down from the third place, that he had been holding most of the weekend, into 7th going into the final event, the 1500m. This has always been a strong event for Aiden and, sure enough, he went off will the overall winner of the competition, Jack Andrew, who beat him in the race but helped Aiden set a PB time of 04:25.27, two seconds faster than his previous PB that he set in 2011.
Overall, a good opening Senior Decathlon for Aiden, and as GB National Combined Events Coach Ian Grant said to him on presenting his medals, the mark of good progress is to beat your previous U20 score when stepping up to senior implements, the first time out.
Andy Davies