12:30pm Friday 10th July 2009
RIDGEWAY School rookies Oliver Brown and Mitchell Coombs will be aiming to complete a memorable season when they make their debuts at the Aviva English Schools’ Track & Field Championships this weekend, writes KEVIN FAHEY.
The event, popularly known as the ‘Kids’ Olympics’ because it has been the launching pad for so many of our star athletes, is being staged at the impressive Don Valley Stadium, in Sheffield.
For both Brown and Coombs it will be a huge test of their temperament and ability to perform under pressure but on the evidence so far the newcomers won’t suffer stage fright.
“They won’t be over-awed by the occasion,” said Ridgeway School athletics chief Tim Whiting. “They will take everything in their stride.”
In his first serious competition 14-year-old Brown won the junior boys’ hammer title at the Wiltshire Schools’ at Salisbury with a throw of 36.17.
Barely a week later he smashed that in the South West Championships staged at the Exeter Arena with a huge throw of 44.30m.
That was good enough to be one of the talking points of the meeting as if lifted Brown, unknown to most of his rivals and watching coaches, to eighth in the UK rankings.
Brown is the only thrower in the top 10 not to be regularly competing for a club and underlines his huge talent, which may well yet see him go even further when the national championships get underway today.
“Oliver has real potential and continues the long line of good hammer throwers we have produced in the school,” added Whiting.
Similarly fellow Ridgway School student Coombs has burst open the athletics scene but in the junior boys’ javelin.
Coombs had to settle for silver in the county championships with a throw of 36.20m but by the following week he had really got into the throwing groove as he won the regional title with an impressive 43.01m, the 21st best throw in the country this summer.
“That was a terrific effort by Mitchell as the qualifying standard was 43metres and he beat it by one centimetre,” said Whiting.
If the pair can repeat, if not better, those performances at Sheffield they may yet produce yet another surprise.
Another local athlete making her English Schools’ debut is 12-year-old Keeleigh Chapman.
The Isambard School student has qualified for the junior girls’ 75m hurdles while from Dorcan School, Covingham, county champion Darren Mobey will run the inter boys’ 3000m.
Alastair Todd has made considerable progress this season but the 16-year-old Malmesbury School student is in a very competitive inter boys’ 400m hurdles and will probably need to match, if not improve, the personal best of 56.7secs he set when winning the county title to make the final.
WILTSHIRE’S ENTRANTS Junior Boys: Rhys Brown 400 (Sheldon School, Chippenham), Jamie Poulton, Luke Batchelor, Jack Templeman (all Salisbury), Mitchell Coombes (javelin, Ridgeway School), Oliver Brown (hammer, Ridgway School).
Inter Boys: Joe Hutchinson (200m, Devizes), Josh Eades (Salisbury), Darren Mobey (3000m Dorcan School), Alastair Todd (400mH, Malmesbury School), Seb Bomani (LJ, St Augustine’s), Tom Gibson (PV Grittleton House School).
Senior Boys: Danny Talbot (200m, St Augustine’s School, Trowbridge).
Junior Girls: Abi Davies (200m, Clarendon, Trowbridge), Anna Alexander Holmes (200m, St Lawrence School, Bradford on Avon), Loren Bleaken (1500m, Hardenhuish, Chippenham), Sarah Neate (75H, Devizes), Keeleigh Chapman (75H, Isamabard School).
Inter Girls: Amelia Clifford, Amy Rochford (both Salisbury), Laura Butcher (PV, Lavington), Gemma Young (SP, Lavington).
Senior Girls: Jenifer Hudson (400H, Marlborough College), Lucy Avrill (HJ, St John’s Marlborough), Sophie Upton ( PV, St Augustine’s).
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