The young athletes of Herts Phoenix AC did themselves and the Club proud when competing for their respective schools at the Hertfordshire Schools Championships at Woodside Stadium, Watford on Saturday.

This is the meeting after which selections are made for the team to represent the county at the English Schools Championships in Gateshead in July.  Many of the Club’s athletes will be hoping that these, and other performances they have achieved so far this season, will be sufficient to secure their places in the team which will be announced in the next week or so.

Leading the way with the gold medals were a number of double winners including Jodie Williams of Queenswood School who won the U15G 100m and 200m, Katie Caulfield of Monks Walk who won the U17W Long Jump and 100m, where she just edged out club colleague Lottie Cullen, both girls being given the same time, and Claire Humphries of Sir Frederic Osborn who won the U17W 80m Hurdles and 200m.

Perhaps the most exciting event of the day was the U17W Javelin where Katie Grehan of Freeman College and Eloise Meakins of Queenswood went head to head in a competition of great quality.  Both girls have been improving of late and were medallists at the South of England Championships in May. They again broke their personal bests several times and this time it was Katie who ended up victorious, breaking the championship best performance with a winning throw of 40.98m – bettering her PB by 5 metres.  Eloise was in second, also with a new PB of over 39m.

Also claiming county titles and gold medals were Joe Gaynor of Stanborough School in the U17M 800m with colleague Tom Barfoot in 3rd, Edward Shepherd who finished ahead of club colleague Vasudev Zaver of St Albans School in the U15B 1500m and Melissa Hadley, Presdales, who set a new championship best performance with 9.38m in the U13G shot.

Natalie Allen, Monks Walk, won the U13G 70m Hurdles in a very exciting race and just edged out club colleague Natasha Hadley, Presdales, who had already won the Long Jump gold medal.

Andrew Walshe of Monks Walk won the U15B 400m in 52.1s with another dominant performance to leave his closest rivals 20m behind.

There was another Club one-two in the U17W 300m Hurdles where Hannah Lloyd of Hatfield Girls beat her training partner Rebecca Hore of Parmiters into second place and in the 300m flat Nina Edwards of Sheredes won a very close race with Club colleagues Deborah Willis of Presdales, Steph Sattin of Freeman College and Emily Hatch of Presdales in 3rd, 4th and 5th places respectively.

Other notable performances came from Francis Slater, Presdales, who was unlucky to come up against Jodie Williams twice, finishing in 2nd place in the U15G 200m and 3rd in the 100m and Sarah Miller, Monks Walk, continued her fine run of form in finishing 2nd with over 27m in the U15G Discus.

Jenny Hutchings, Presdales, claimed an excellent second place with 1.59m in the U17W High Jump despite having missed several weeks of the season with an ankle injury which is to require surgery soon.

In the U17M 800m, Nick McNaught was making a welcome return and ran well in his first 800m of the year despite having missed the first half of the season due to a foot injury – the Club wishes him well on his return to form.

Last but by no means least, last years national AAA champion Nathan Wake of Richard Hale returned to the track in the U17B 400m for his first race of the season and ran a blistering 49.0s to show that he is returning to fitness.  This was a fantastic return from one of the Club’s brightest young stars.  The whole Club hopes that his injury problems are behind him now and that he can look forward to the rest of the season with confidence and some more outstanding performances on the track.

Jon Humphries