Fab four take home the golds
A quartet of talented young athletes were celebrating after striking gold in the Shropshire Schools Combined Events Championships.
The battle for glory was held at the Telford Stadium and saw William Armstrong Barnes, Kitty Scholes-Pryce, Rachael Deaney and Ed Barnes come out on top in their respective competitions.
Armstrong Barnes, from Burton Borough School Newport, won junior boys’ pentathlon for Year 8 and 9 students.
He finished on 1,829 points with Vincent Turner (Abraham Darby School) claiming second place with 1,635 points while another Burton Borough student, Sam Kerrison, took the bronze with 1,465.
Turner led after the first two events, the 80m hurdles, where he clocked a time of 13.3 seconds, and shot (7.05m), before Armstrong Barnes surged into the lead after a 4.85m long jump. He extended his lead with 1.40m high jump and then clinched gold with the fastest 800m time of 2.27.7.
All the first 3 boys scored their highest points in the very first event the 80m hurdles, Vincent Turner ran 13.3 to score 549 points, Will Armstrong Barnes ran 14.7 scoring 422 points and Sam Kerrison ran 15.2 to score 380 points.
Shrewsbury School’s Scholes-Pryce led throughout the junior girls’ pentathlon to end with 2,279 points.
She ran the 75m hurdles in 12.6 to score 609, her highest point tally of any event.
Olivia Clarke (Shrewsbury High School) claimed silver with 2,213. After lying second throughout the day, Clark gave it a really good go for gold in the final event, the 800m, where she went out very hard and came home in 2.34, 12 seconds ahead of the eventual winner.
Thomas Telford School’s Kinga Trutwin (1,904) completed the top three.
The intermediate girls’ heptathlon gold was won by Deaney from Shrewsbury High School.
She topped the podium after scoring 2,833 over the two days of competition.
Deaney led throughout the seven events with her best score coming in the 200m at the end of day one where she ran 29.9 to gain 472 points.
Her other high scoring events were the high jump, where a 1.36m clearance gave her 470, and the 80m hurdles, where she scored 438 points. Monica White (Wrekin College) came second with 2,703, ahead of third-placed Katie Appleby (Burton Borough) who scored 2,658.
ponts with the 1.36 high jump her best event scoring her 470 points, with the 80m hurdles her next highest scoring event where she ran 15.6. Burton Borough’s Katie Appleby eventually finished 3rd after being in 2nd place for 200m and the long jump. Her highest scores came in the final event the 800m where she ran 2.41 scoring her 561 points and 445 points for the 200m. her final total was 2658 points.
Bishops Castle’s Barnes won the intermediate boys’ octathlon after scoring 3,227 points in the eight-event competition.
His highest score came in the final event, the 1500m, where he notched up 591.
