PBs All Round for our Combined Events Athletes at the National Championships.
This weekend our U20 Combined Events athletes took part in the England Athletics Senior/U20 Outdoor Combined Events championships at Bedford and all came away with a host of individual and overall personal best performances, despite less than perfect conditions on day 1 of the event.
AIDEN DAVIES – In the U20 Men’s Decathlon, Aiden earned a Silver medal with an overall PB score of 6726 – 383 points more than his previous best, set at the 2013 English Schools finals, where he also took the Silver medal.
The competition didn’t start well for Aiden – the weather conditions for the 100m were wet and miserable and both his day 1 jumps were below par, due to a re-occurrence of his knee problems. He did however manage to pull out a personal best Shot Putt of 13.33m and an outdoor P.B. in the 400m of 49.38.
He finished day 1 in second place, the position he was to hold on to, really 
unchallenged, for the rest of the competition.
Day 2 was a much better day, both weather and performance wise. His opening event, the 110m Hurdles was a bit down on what he has done previously, but in the next 3 events he managed to achieve personal best performances – discus throw of 40.10 (a new DAC Club record), pole vault of 3.85m, and a javelin throw of 38.00m.
Aiden ended the day with an overall Silver medal and Gold Northern one. His score of 6726 ranks him number 2 in the UK currently and 29th in the All Time UK rankings for U20 Decathlon. He was only beaten by David Hall from Dartford Harriers, who won with an incredible score of 7360 points, which was a World Juniors qualifying standard and ranks David no.4 in the all-time UK U20 Dec list.
KYE STOTHARD – Also in U20 Decathlon, Kye was competing for the first time in this age group. He had an outstanding competition where he recorded lifetime personal best performances in no less than 8 out of the 10 events. In only the first (100m) and last events (1500m) did Kye just miss out on a PB.
Day 1, he jumped PBs of 6.24m in the Long Jump and 1.81m in the High Jump, putt the shot 9.39m and ran a great 400m in 50.38 secs. He finished day 1 in 6th place.
On day 2, Kye carried on what he started the previous day. First a PB in the 110mH, with a time of 17.24secs. Next a PB Discus throw of 26.60m, followed by a 2.75m pole vault, and 32.70m javelin throw. He finished the competition with a really strong 1500m run where he led the field home in a time of 04:22:22 mins.
Kye finished the day in a very creditable 7th place overall and picked-up a Northern bronze medal for his troubles.
LUCY CHAPPELL – Lucy was also competing in her 1st U20 Heptathlon competition and like Kye, also ended the competition in 7th place with a great score of 4442 points and 3 personal best performances to boot.
Lucy had a great start to the competition with a P.B. 100m hurdles run of 15.30 secs. She followed this jumping the highest in the comp with a 1.69 HJ. Next came a personal best shot putt of 8.77m and she ended the day with a 27.02 run in the 200m, finishing the day in 6th position overall.
Day 2 started with a relatively average long jump for Lucy of 5.06. She followed this up though with a solid Javelin throw of 24.78 and finished the competition with a very gritty PB in the 800m with a time of 2:30:64mins.
Andy Davies