Three Bedford & County athletes competed at the Regional Schools Combined Championships in exhausting conditions of extreme heat last weekend.
Now competing for Buckinghamshire Schools, Thaila-Jade Mason scored a decisive win by nearly 400 points in the Senior Girls Heptathlon at Abingdon .Her standout event was the 200m where she ran 25.2 seconds aided by a wind of 4.6mps, although to be fair the wind was in her face around the bend. She set a person best of 8.04m with the 4Kg shot whilst her overall total of 4434 points was also a personal best as it was her first U20 Heptathlon with a 4 kg shot and 600gm Javelin.
Meanwhile Lois Fordham and Emily Elphick were competing for Bedfordshire in the Junior Girls Pentathlon at the East Anglian Regional Finals at Corby.
Lois in only her third pentathlon finished a very creditable 10th with a score of 2142points- a massive increase on her previous best of 1875 points, having improved her hurdles by a second to 13.6 sec, her long jump to 4.50m and equaled her best of 1.40m in the high jump. Emily finished in an equally creditable 12th place in her first ever pentathlon scoring a promising 2069 points. She equaled her best of 13.5 sec in the hurdles and set a lifetime best of 1.46m in the high jump.
All three athletes now move on to the English Schools Track and Field Championships in their specialist events: Thalia in the long jump; Lois and Emily in the pole vault and javelin respectively. Thaila also qualified for the ESAA Combined Event finals in September.
