Senior Relay Team the Golden Cherry on top of a Silver Speckled Cake

Bedford and County athletes in the Bedfordshire Schools Senior Relay Team put a golden cherry on top of a silver speckled cake at the English Schools Athletics Championships held at Birmingham’s Commonwealth Stadium last weekend.

In the inaugural running of the mixed 4 x 100m relay event, the well drilled quartet of Etienne Maughan, Jasmine Wilkins, Daniel Harding-Forbes and Ben Moseray stormed away to win the “A” final in a time of 45.05 seconds, beating the time of the winners of the B final by over a second. With this being the first running of this particular event, their time will mean that Bedfordshire currently hold five Championships Best Performances from over the 98 years of these national championships. 

The silver speckles come in the form of three silver medals over the two days of the championships.

On the first day of the championships, Thaila-Jade Mason contested the Inter Girls Long jump in the face of strong but varying winds. Nevertheless, her second jump went out to a new personal best of 5m 44cms placing her in 4th with the top eight athletes to have three further jumps. Waiting for the wind to drop, she was perfect on the board on her fifth jump cutting the sand at 5.59 metres some 20 centimetres further than she had ever before. This moved her into what she thought was third place, however she was wrong! When the final result was announced, she discovered that she had displaced the athlete in second by a single centimetre.  Thaila’s delight at winning the silver was further heightened by the knowledge that she would be selected to represent England in the Schools International in Scotland on July 15th.

Joining her on the international team will be Lyla Danobrega whose silver medal in the Inter Girls 1500m Steeplechase was the product of a year’s planning a towards this goal. Having run the 1500m last year she switched her target to the steeplechase. Refusing to go with what, for her, would have been a suicidal fast pace set by the eventual winner, Lyla bided her time and slowly made her way though the field until on the final back straight she was in contention for the silver medal. With 200m to go she moved into 2nd, but the girl on her shoulder looked ominously strong. However, Lyla’ superior technique and concentration proved decisive as her rival fell in the water and Lyla powered down to home straight to an emphatic second place, recording a five second personal best time of 5 minutes 06.16 seconds.

Meanwhile Etienne Maughan climaxed her English Schools career by adding a silver medal in the Senior Girls 100m Hurdles to the bronze she won at 80m Hurdles in 2021. She set a fourth personal best of the season, clocking 14.00 sec to win her heat and then shaved another one-hundreth off recording 13.98 in the final. Whilst there is no school’s international for seniors, Etienne is stepping onto a bigger stage having been invited to compete at the Great Britain Senior Championships to be held in Manchester next weekend.

Gracie Wall, proud holder of a full set English Schools medals and current England U20 Champion, finished a frustrated 4th in the Senior Girls High Jump (1.75m), having had her competition and concentration disrupted by the Grand Parade marching within a metre behind the start of her run up. She too has been invited to the GB Championships next weekend. 

Noah Campion had a great run for 4th place in his first Championship in the Senior Boys 3000m (8m 44.75 sec).  Euan Supple completed the top eight places with 8th place in the Senior Boys 2000m Steeplechase in 6 minutes 23.24 sec. 

Special mention should also be given to Lily Farr who smashed her personal best by three seconds in the Inter Girls 1500m recording 4 m 41.82. Strong negative winds of up to minus 3.7 metres per second destroyed the hopes of the sprinters for fast times and negatively affected other events as well.

In addition to those in the Bedfordshire and Luton team, two Bedford & County AC athletes represented Cambridgeshire at the ESSA Championships last weekend.
 
Eva Henry came 11th in the Inter Girls Triple Jump Final with 10.04m.  This was a big shock for Eva to get the call up as she had only jumped over 10m 3 weeks beforehand and received the call up 2 weeks before the Championships.
 
Sadie Werrett came 8th in the Senior Girls Javelin Final with 36.10 metres.  This is the 3rd year that Sadie has represented Bedford & County and Cambridgeshire at the ESSA Championships.

Full Bedford and County Results: