2024 Review June
Competition began in June on the 1st of the month with Mia Judd (coach James Hind) breaking the overall club high jump record with a leap of 1.75m representing another club as higher claim in the NAL. With our own NAL application being successful for 2025, this isn’t something Mia will need to do this year.
On Sunday the 2nd the club hosted its first Wessex league match of the campaign coming 2nd behind Basingstoke in the main match but winning the quad kids match.
The following weekend saw the County Schools championships on the Saturday which meant the club winning a plethora of county schools titles and at the same time the South of England U20 & Senior champs took place in Eton which resulted in U20 titles for Charlie Elford Pond (coach Eric Davison) in the hammer and Arabella Wilson (coach Andy Fisher) in the 400m hurdles. Silver medals were won by Elsie Brindle (coach Mark Upton) despiting competing up an age group and by Bella in the 200m. Mia Judd won high jump bronze and Carys Jeffries (coach Andy Fisher) was 6th in the long jump.
On the weekend of the 15th & 16th June, the club took a depeleted team to our 2nd SAL match of ther season in Eton on the Saturday finishing in last place despite some great throwing from Charlie Elford-Pond and Leslie Parkes (coach Eric Davison). Also on the Saturday, our young athletes were in action for Hampshire schools in the South East Counties inter-counties school match in Hendon much of which took place in pouring rain. On the Sunday our U13/U15 athletes took part in their 3rd LAG YDL match of the season in Hornchurch finishing last despite some amazing performances including new age group club records in the 75m & 150m for U13B Toby Gardener (coach Andy Fisher) and a jump of 1.63m in the U15G HJ for Esme Buchanan (coach Andy Fisher) which saw her go 2nd on the club’s all time age group list.
On the Monday in Southampton, the vets were in Hampshire league action in Southampton which included a fine win in the medley relay for the men. On the 19th June, Mia Judd headed to Solvakia to compete in the prestigious JBL jump fest. At the weekend, many of the club’s athletes used the regional rounds of the schools combined events championships to qualify for Septembers National finals including Seni Purnell (coach Andy Fisher) whose score of 3248 points in winning the U15G pentathlon took her 2nd in the club’s all time age group list. On Sunday the 23rd June, the club was 5th in its 2nd Wessex League fixture in Poole with once more the Quadkids winning their match.
A very busy last weekend of the month saw the UAG YDL team finish 5th on the Sunday in their last UAG match of the season in Hendon which sadly saw them condemed to relegation in the composite team along with Portsmouth. The same weekend saw Jess Howells (coach Andy Fisher) win the South of England Combined Events champs with a score that would see her finish the season as UK no 3 in the heptathlon. It was also the UK champs weekend in Manchester which saw two of the club’s brightest U20 athletes Mia Judd and Arabella Wilson line up against the best athletes in the country both performing very creditably.
The month finished with the amazing news that Elsie Brindle had been selected to compete for GB in the medley relay at the European U18 champs in Slovakia. The GB U18 vest was the first for any athlete in this age group at the club.