Brighton & Hove’s Katie Garland , Amber Anning and Matt Smith have all qualified for the English Schools’ Combined Events Finals in September, after strong performances at the South East Regional Championships in Reading last weekend.
Competing in the Senior girls (U19) heptathlon Garland clocked 15.1s for the 100 hurdles, leapt 1.66m in the high jump, putt the shot 8.94m and clocked 25.5s for the 200 metres on the opening day to lead the way into Sunday’s competition. Garland continued to stretch her lead with a 5.70m long jump, 27.72m javelin throw and a 2:26.7s 800 to bring her total up to 4811 points, a personal best, a club record and fourth place on the Sussex All Time bests list.
Meanwhile on the Sunday Amber Anning secured a silver medal, stringing together a fine series of performances in the Junior (U15) Pentathlon including personal best’s in the High Jump 1.57m, Long Jump 5.57m and 800m 2:27.3. Both the Long Jump and Pentathlon score are club records and Anning also improved the 15 year old county pentathlon record with a final tally of 3252 points.
Matt Smith held on to his seventh place in the Intermediate (U17) Octathlon with a personal best total of 4378. Smith leapt 6.11m in the long jump, threw the discus 28.56m, launched the javelin to 38.40 and clocked 54.1s for the 400m. He followed this up on Sunday with a 15.3s hurdles, 1.69m high jump, 10.68m Shot putt and 4:54.4s 1500 metres.
The three talented all-rounders will all be competing at the English Schools’ Championships in Gateshead next Friday and Saturday in individual events along with 12 other athletes from Brighton & Hove AC.