Edwards wins twice at Anglian Schools Champs - News - LIVING SPORT

Edwards wins twice at Anglian Schools Champs

At the Anglian Schools Championships in Grantham, Huntingdonshire AC’s Jonathan Edwards once again stamped his authority with wins in the Senior Boys shot putt and hammer events.

Competing against the very best in Cambs, Lincs, Northants and Suffolk, Edwards improved his personal best in the shot putt 14.00m to place himself as 25th best in the country, before 13m victory in the hammer which just fell short of his best-ever.

In the Intermediate Boys 400m championship race, 16 year old Jordan Gillbanks continued his excellent run of form with a half-second. Both Edwards and Gillbanks will compete in the English Schools Championships next month.

Another six runners from Hunts AC took on the mammoth challenge of the Pathfinder March, a 46-mile multi-terrain event starting and finishing at RAF Wyton. Hunts AC runners started the march at 8am with the intention of covering the course in the quickest time possible.

Andy Richardson and Adrian Woolven completed the distance in 8:01, over half an hour faster than the previous record. However, they were just pipped to the post, finishing in joint second place just five minutes behind the winner.

The third competition involving Hunts AC athletes was the East Anglian match held at Braintree, which saw 19 year old Paul Hayball return from university to reclaim his spot as the club’s top thrower from Jonathan Edwards.

In the shot putt event, Hayball reached his furthest-ever distance with 12.67m to beat Edwards by 16 cms and win the A string event, with Edwards claiming victory in the B string event and adding a single centimetre to Hayball’s junior club record.

In the discus, Hayball again rose to the occasion by beating his two year old personal best and again beating Edwards, this time by 62 cms, but once more both claimed wins in the A and B string competitions.

Hayball hurled the javelin over the 40 metre barrier to go to the top of the club’s rankings this year in the third of the throwing events, with Edwards yet again placing first in the B string event.

Edwards really came into his own in the hammer throw where he won easily with yet another club record, adding over a metre to the mark which he set last month, and a distance of 46.62m sees him ranked in the top ten in the national junior rankings.

In the Under 17 Men’s category, Hakeem Duckworth-Porter and Ryan Palmer completely swept the board with A and B string wins in the 100m and the 200m. In the same age group, Michael Benning rose to the occasion with victory in the A string 1500m and also the B string long jump.

Edit Article