Bedford & County AC's Senior Men's squad were in action on Saturday, earning much deserved but very hard fought for silver medals in the National Cross Country Relays at Berry Hill Park, Mansfield.
This relay is contested over 4 legs of 5K, each leg comprising 2 laps of a very testing undulating loop. With over 150 teams toeing the start line, including all the top teams in the country, it is one of the most anticipated events of the season.
Bedford & County athletes enjoyed outstanding results in some closely fought contests at the South of England U13/15/17 Championships held on a searingly hot weekend at Walton Athletics Stadium.
Thaila- Jade Mason took her third title of the year in the U17 Long jump following her successes at the English Schools Long Jump, and the Anglian
Schools Heptathlon. Although three of her four valid jumps exceeded that of second place, she only won by 6 centimetres with 5.81m.
In a very tightly contested U15 Girls hammer, Mia Flynn took a silver medal and set a new PB and club record. Less than 2 metres covered the three medal
positions with Mia only 70 centimetres behind the winner, Aspen Stobart ofWimborne. Mia’s best throw of 43.15m improved her club record by 10centimetres.
Zaphaniah Bryan also brought home a silver in the U17 Men’s High Jump improving his new personal best by 2 centimetres to 1.90m. The winner,
Samuel James of Kingston, had to set a PB of 1.95m to defeat him, whilst the third placer cleared 1.85m.
Emily Elphick, was just out of the medals in 4 th place in the U13 girls Javelin. In an exciting competition, with less than a metre covering the first four places, Emily threw 31.17m.
10 very nervous U13 club athletes put on Bedfordshire vests for the very first time at the Dereck
Crookes U13 Inter Counties on Sunday 4 th August. They travelled to Walton-on-Thames, Surrey and
came away with 3 PBs. The Bedfordshire girls finished 12 th with 134 points and the boys also finished
12 th with 129 points.
The juniors went into the last match of the EYAL 2024 with baited breath. After the June match we
were 13th on equal league points with St Albans, but, 170 match points behind. We needed to finish 3rd
on the day to ensure a 12th place finish and qualification for the Plate Final. The other 3 matches of
July were held on the 21st . Our match was held on the 28th due to Basildon, Havering and us
competing in the YDL on the 21st . We had a fantastic turn out and came away 2nd behind Havering
meaning we qualified for the Plate Final for the first time in 5 years!
The Club’s U13s and U15s travelled with a small team, due to it being the first weekend of the
summer holidays, to Windsor for the last YDL match of the season. The athletes produced 29 PBs
and 2 SBs. The boys came away with 10 PBs and 2 SBs. The girls 19 PBs.
We finished 5th.
Thaila- Jade Mason (Van Dyke) added a silver medal in the long jump at the Schools International Match to the gold she had won at the English Schools Championships the previous week.
In persistent rain at Carmarthen, South Wales, Thaila jumped 5.83metres to lead her Welsh rival Olivia Scrimshaw by a single centimetre. However, the Welsh Champion hit back in the next round to set an Under17 UK leading mark of 5.96m to settle the competition. Gracie Osman of England was third with a personal best of 5.71 metres. England won the match from Scotland, Ireland and Wales by a comfortable margin.
Pictured Gracie Osman (L) Thaila – Jade Mason (R)
Two golds and a set of relay silvers represented a fair return for a largely inexperienced Bedfordshire team at the English Schools Championships in Birmingham last weekend.
Under cloudy skies and windy conditions Thaila-Jade Mason(Van Dyke) followed up last year’s silver medal with an outstanding performance to dominate the Inter Girls Long Jump. Last to jump in the field of 17, she nailed her first jump of 5.92m to kill the competition stone dead. Her dominance was such that four of Thaila’s jumps were in excess of 5.66m the mark of the second placed athlete. Thaila’s reward is selection to represent England in the School’s international in Carmarthen next Saturday.
Thaila-Jade Mason dominated the U17 Girls heptathlon at the Anglian Regional Schools Championships held at Chelmsford this weekend winning, by 679 points.
An 11.9 sec 80m hurdles (only 3/100ths short of her lifetime best) saw her off to a flying start, sharing the lead with Sophie Catchpole of Essex. She then seized an outright lead by clearing a new lifetime best of 1.66m in the high jump to go into a 200 point lead. She never looked back. Thaila’s shot of 9.22m, was just 2cms shy of her personal best, whilst another PB of 25.8 sec. in the 200m saw her with a commanding overnight lead of 400 points.
Although disappointed with her long jump of 5.58m, it was nevertheless, half a metre further than anyone else, extending her lead to 674 points. 25.66m in the javelin and 2 min 38.0 in the 800m (both close to her previous personal bests) saw Thaila accumulate a total of 4627 points – a lifetime personal best score by 124 points.
Thaila now qualifies for the English Schools National Heptathlon Finals to be held in Stoke in September.
