Nineteen Reading Athletes Selected for English Schools

Reading AC wishes the very best to its nineteen athletes selccted to compete in the prestigious English Schools’ National Finals on the weekend of 9, 10 and 11 July in Manchester.

This year’s competition has been more difficult to gain selection for as current restrictions on numbers have only facilitated the top sixteen applicants for each discipline with many fine and aspiring athletes missing out on the opportunity.

The selected athletes are:

For Berkshire Schools:

  • Senior Boys 400m Reuben Henry-Daire

  • Senior Girls 3000m Mia Waldmann

  • Inter Boys 100m Hagen Mzee

  • Inter Boys Hammer Finley Hanham

  • Inter Boys Long Jump Sammy Ball

  • Inter Boys Pole Vault Charlie Orbell

  • Inter Girls 100m Kaya Slater

  • Inter Girls 80mH Amelia Walsh

  • Inter Girls Shot Mia Greenidge-Knell

  • Inter Girls Pole Vault Ruby Harris

  • Junior Boys 100m Reuben Anthony-Deyemo

  • Junior Boys 300m Aaron Lamb

  • Junior Boys 80mH Kahlon Nneke

  • Junior Boys Long Jump Owen Ho Wang Chan

  • Junior Girls 100m Lexie Thompson

  • Junior Girls 75mH Tomi Adejuwon

  • Junior Girls Pole Vault Chloe Huskinson

For Oxfordshire Schools:

  • Senior Girls Pole Vault Emily Scrivener

  • Junior Girls Long Jump Charlotte Bigmore

Reading Athletes Compete at a Weekend of Regional and National Events

Reading AC Athletes were in competition around the country on the weekend of 25, 26 and 27 June.

At the Mueller British Championships Jonny Davies achieved fourth position in the 5000m with 13 mins 39.75secs whilst in the field, Charlotte Payne earned ninth position with 58.69m in the hammer throw.

It was also the weekend of regional schools’ combined events for the multi-eventers coached by Mike Dyer and Kevin Cranmer. Three of his female athletes were competing for Oxfordshire Schools in the Midlands area and three male athletes for Berkshire in the South East region.

Georgina Ashby was part of the Oxfordshire who secured third place in the Intermediate girls team with her first ever Heptathlon. Meanwhile, Charlotte Bigmore finished second in the Juniors Pentathlon, with. Charlotte Ashby also helping the Oxfordshire team win silver. Charlotte Bigmore will now progress to the national final in Bedford in September.

Meanwhile in the South East Championships, Joe Frew ,who has now moved up to the Decathlon, collected numerous personal best performances to secure the third place the Seniors and hopefully a place in the national final to be confirmed shortly. Hal Rust D'Eye and Sammy Ball helped the Berkshire win gold in the Intermediate Boys Octathlon and so also progress to the National final.

Hal, in his first year in the age group attained six new personal bests and gained valuable experience in the move up from the Pentathlon. As previously reported Sammy Ball won individual title, setting six personal bests and a UK all time record!

UK All-Time Best Performance in Octathlon

Reading ACs Sammy Ball competing in the U17 Octathlon for Berkshire Schools has scored the highest points total ever.

Sammy started the two-day event in Lee Valley, London with a 6.77m long jump which is forty centimetres down on his 7.17 m personal best. He compensated for this with a seven and a half metre improvement to his discus attaining 37.92m. Javelin followed with a 39.84m throw, close to his previous best. Day one ended with a blistering 49.3 second 400m run smashing three seconds off his previous best in October 2020 and going home with a respectable 2,669 points, three hundred and fifty points up from his previous best.

Day two commenced with a safe 100m hurdles in a personal best time of 13.4 seconds. Sammy then cleared 1.86m in the high jump, four centimetres below his best. To make up for that, he then broke his own shot put club record by twenty centimetres with a put of 15.20m.

Going in to the final event, the 1,500m, Sammy was 780 points short of the all-time UK record of 5,800 points. This equated to an estimated time of 4 mins 24 secs meaning Sammy would need to cut eight seconds off his previous best performance. After a good first lap his pace dropped over the second and third laps leaving him four seconds off the pace with 300m to go. Sammy then moved up a few gears, and came into the home straight with the entire stadium in support to help him across the line in 4 mins 22.8 secs.

In his characteristic style, Sammy stayed on his feet, turned around and clapped home every other competitor. Without a timer on the finish line there was an agonising few minutes wait before the announcer informed the stadium that the previous UK all time best performance, dating back Birchfield Harrier’s Ed Dunford in 2001, had just been beaten. Overall, Sammy’s score was 5,813 points. Together with his Berkshire team which won the overall competition, he now moves on to the National English Schools Octathlon in September in Bedford.

52 Year Old Record Broken

Another busy weekend of athletics competitions!

Reading ACs Reuben Henry-Daire won the Southern U20 400m title at Bedford this weekend with a fantastic time of 48.03 secs. The time broke the previous record of John Edwards set back in 1969.

Meanwhile, elsewhere Reading AC’s Jonathan Davies broke his own Senior Men’s 5,000m record at a meeting in Nice, France by clocking 13:21.56 mins that cut almost two-and-a-half seconds off the previous record.

At the Berkshire Schools championships at Palmer Park, Reading, Sammy Ball jumped 7.17 metres to break his own U17 and U20 records keeping his lead on the national rankings and hopefully securing his place at the English Schools Championships in Manchester in July. Mia Greenidge-Knell also broke the U17 Women’s shot put record at the same competition with a best put of 12.74m.

Overall, Reading AC had 31 athletes take part in the Berkshire Schools, with twenty-five finishing top three and sixteen first places and sixteen new pbs. Also standing out was Hagen Mzee running a 10.9 100m to go second U17 in the UK .

At the BMC in Watford there were almost pbs all round for the four female athletes who went. Lauren Church knocked ten seconds off her 1500m time, with 4:25.65, Emma Howsham ran 4:29.23, Kirsty Walker 4:33.60 (sb) and Anna Boniface ran a 5000m pb of 17:00.63.

A Weekend of League Competitions

There was a convincing victory for our U13 and U15 athletes at the first Lower Group YDL fixture held at Bedford on Saturday 5 June 2021.

It was nice to see the Reading AC vests back in action in league competition for the first time in a couple of years, with the youngsters recording 34 PBs during the afternoon.

Meanwhile, the senior men and women travelled to Portsmouth for the first match of the newly constituted National Athletics League where U17 Sammy Ball , in his first venture in the senior league, achieved an U17 long jump club record of 7.09m which also allows him to claim the U20 record.

Twelve Club Records In Fifteen Days

The Reading AC warm up series has so far proved a great success. In all, twelve club records were achieved in fifteen days, and the series is not yet over.

See the table below for the record makers:

12 Records May 2021.jpg

Good work from athletes, officials and parents alike. It’s great to see the track and field so vibrant again.

Click the links below to see photos and links for the recent Reading AC Warm Up events.

Update From Berkshire Schools' Athletics

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT BERKSHIRE SCHOOLS THIS YEAR:

U15 and U17 (Year 8/9 and 10/11) will take place on Saturday 12th June at Palmer Park Track in Reading (with the exceptions of hammer and discus - venue TBC)

U19 (Year 12/13) will not be in person and they will need to make sure they are competing in club competitions / South U20 champs (12th June) and will submit their best performances to the committee for possible selection for the English schools competition

U13 (Year 7) will take place on Thursday 1st July (4-6pm) at Palmer Park Track in Reading

There will be more information coming out very soon about how to enter as this will be very different to normal years where you would have to enter via district events.

For U15/U17 (juniors and inters):

For this year only we are allowing individual entries from individuals / schools / clubs via a google form. They will need to prove their performances (powerof10 competitions) and have achieved at least the district standard in their chosen event (only 1 event as per previously).

Once we have received all entries (the deadline will be Tuesday 25th May) then we will notify the top 12 athletes in each event and they will be able to compete in person on the day on the 12th June. Juniors will compete in the morning and inters in the afternoon with only 1 spectator (parent / coach / teacher) allowed at the venue.

As you can appreciate there are a lot of different things to consider when hosting events in covid times and we are governed by UKA / England Athletics guidance as well as specific guidance from the venue (Palmer Park). The way that we are running this event is in line with most other counties in the region and the best way to still have a championship event and allow the fairest method for selection for the English Schools Championships which has also had to change how it is being run for this year.

For the meantime please put this date in your dairies. Let your athletes know that they need to be competing in club level events to try and achieve the district standard in their event to be able to apply to enter (these are attached). Athletics age groups are Junior (U15) - years 8 and 9, Inters (U17) years 10 and 11 and Seniors (U19) years 12 and 13.

I will be sending out the google form for entering in the next week. I will also put this on twitter, facebook and the berkshire website. Please encourage your club athletes to attend club events to get times / distances in their respective events making sure that they achieve at least the district standard and then to enter when the google form comes out. They will have to the weekend of the 22/23rd May to complete any competitions. Hope this all makes sense!

Many thanks

Pip Kirkby

BSAA