Three Herts Phoenix athletes travelled to Birmingham at the weekend to compete in the National Combined Event Championships and in the process came face to face with some of Britain’s top athletes. Full sets of results can be accessed via the "Results" tab on the left of this page.

Laura Jones and Natalie Farman were competing in the Senior Championships, whilst Laura Wake was competing in her first year as an Under 20.

Laura Jones, back after a season out of competition due to injury registered two new personal bests in her first National Championships in two years.  The first was to come on the second day in the Javelin with a throw of 36.23m and with good performances in nearly all of her events, she registered a final points total of 4,584, a 36 point improvement on her personal best recorded 18 months ago.  This meant she finished just 18 points ahead of her nearest rival to give her fourth place in the Championships.
 
“I was quite nervous” said Laura “because so many Internationals were competing but in many ways it helped me, as I had nothing to lose. Some of them were not competing very well and I was starting to record better performances than some of them, this gave me quite a bit of confidence which helped me on the second day.  I’m sure I can go even better in my next competition”.

The winner of the Championship was Julie Holman who finished with 5,909 points and just short of the Olympic qualifying mark.

England Athletics Regional Combined Events Coach, Dave Rice said “I was delighted with Laura’s performances, she knows where she has to improve, and could quite easily reach the 5,000 points mark. Considering she has been out for over a year, to come back with a new personal best is really good going”.

Natalie Farman was also on good form.  Having competed two weeks earlier at the Woodford Green Open Meeting and set a new personal best point total there with 4,126, she improved yet again with a number of new personal bests, including a points total of 4,150.

Natalie said “I had an awful start with 16.1 in the hurdles and 1.51m in the High Jump but managed to make up for it with pb’s in the Shot Putt with 9.45m and the 200m with 27.2 seconds on day one and then in the Long Jump with 5.23m and the Javelin with 31.03m on day 2.”

“The 800m also went better than at Woodford Green with 2:42.77, over 5 seconds faster, so to get another overall improvement is very pleasing.”

Dave Rice added “Natalie has worked very hard this winter on all the events in the Heptathlon, especially the running elements, so these results are in the right direction, and again I am very pleased.”

Both Laura and Natalie will now be preparing for their next Heptathlon, which will be the Hexham International Meeting in July.

Laura Wake also competed in her first Under 20 Championship and bearing in mind she is in the middle of her A level exams, was performing well, gaining a personal best in the 100mHurdles.  This is the first event in the Heptathlon and her time of 15.79 seconds was nearly a second quicker than her previous outing at this event. Right up until the Javelin on the second day she was holding her own in the competition against some very experienced Heptathletes but then had the misfortune to have three no throws. Whilst she completed the competition, it was not in the way she would have wanted and will now prepare for the South East Regional Schools Combined Events Championships in June when she will be representing Hertfordshire and seeking a place in the English Schools Finals in September.

Dave Rice, England Athletics East Combined Events Coach