Our Junior athletes made the long journey to Chelmsford to take part in the EYAL Top Six Final. We finished a very commendable 5th overall, 13 points behind 4th and 35 behind 3rd. The other 5 teams we were up against were also in the Finals last year. The athletes produced an amazing 44 PBs (16 for the girls and 28 for the boys).
Congratulations to Olive Pyecroft who has broken the U13 Girls discus club record with a throw of 26.99m at the recent Biggleswade Summer Throws Fest.
Oriana Johnson competed in the W65 Women’s Hammer Throw at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea.
Oriana produced an excellent performance to finish 19th overall, exceeding her pre-competition ranking in a very strong international field that saw seven athletes throw beyond 30 metres.
Her best throw of 19.78m was the third-longest competition throw of her career and, even more impressively, set a new W65 club record.
Oriana added more than 2.5 metres to the previous record, set by Dorothy Fraser in 2004, bringing a 22-year-old club record to an end.
A superb achievement on the world stage and a performance Oriana can be extremely proud of.
Ben Phillips added a fourth gold to his tally of 2026 National medals at the England Octathlon Championships at Bedford last weekend.
Personal Bests in his first two events (100m – 12.76sec and Long Jump – 5.42m) set him well on his way. He followed up with a near pb of 43.19m in the javelin before his strongest event – the Pole Vault. Ben’s clearance at 3.95m was the highest of the day but was disappointed not to clear a new personal best of 4.05m, ending the day with a clear lead in the U15 competition and 6th in the combined U15/16 event.
A slightly depleted team of the club’s junior athletes turned out for our 4th and final league match of the EYAL on our home track. In warm conditions they produced 53 PBs (22 for the girls and 31 for the boys). We needed to finish second to Havering and hope the results at Shaftesbury and Norwich went our way to maintain our 4th place league position and advance to the Top Six Cup Final. Throughout the day the lead kept swapping between us and Havering. We eventually triumphed and beat Havering by 61 points. With Shaftesbury and Norwich both finishing second in their matches we held on to our 4th place. This is the highest we have finished since 2019.
A large contingent of the club’s U14 athletes travelled to Walton-On-Thames on Sunday to represent Bedfordshire. For many of these young athletes it was the first time they had worn county colours. Only 3 of the team were not Bedford & County athletes. The boys team finished 10th with 185 points and the girls were 11th with 207 points.
The England Athletics Age Group Championships were held at Bedford International Athletic Stadium on 25th and 26th July. Bedford and County Athletes had a successful day out with multiple medals won.
