BACK TO SCHOOL

BRITAIN’S TOP SCHOOL-AGE ATHLETES WENT TO LOUGHBOROUGH TO CONTEST THE LAST MAJOR DOMESTIC TITLES OF THE YEAR

REPORT: PAUL LARKINS

SIGNING the season off in style, Britain’s leading under-17s gathered for the 11th annual edition of this event.

Featuring an Olympic-style programme of events over four days, athletes from several sports get to feel what it would be like to live in the village before their competition – an experience from which the likes of Dina Asher-Smith, Daryll Neita, Emily Diamond and Rio hammer bronze medallist Sophie Hitchon have all benefitted in the past.

“It’s been great,” said the South West’s Anna Burt, who broke the 800m championships best by nearly two seconds with 2:07.58. “I’ve been to see other sports and it’s been really good meeting all sorts of athletes.”

Yasmin Austridge: 1500m steeplechase win and record

As for the race, Burt looked supreme. Unflustered by Emma Alderson’s usual frantic opening 300m, she caught the early leader a stride after 400m – passed in 61.37 – and surged hard down the back straight to open up a huge lead on the chasing pack. “I was expecting that fast pace early on, but I was confident I would win it with 150m left,” she said. Emily Thompson fought her way to second, to run 2:10.69 in what was a blanket finish for second.

Also in record-breaking mood was Yasmin Austridge, the defending champion in the 1500m steeplechase. By her own admission, she’s been in up-and-down form this year and not racing that well so was keen to put that to rights. She hit the front from the gun and by halfway was comfortably clear of Maisie Grice, eventually running out the winner in 5:05.50, well ahead of the 5:15.34 of Grice, who was comfortably clear of third.

“I moved down to 400 hurdles,” Austridge said, describing how learning to cope with a new distance and the technique needed to be a hurdler has finally started to pay dividends after finishing just fourth in the English Schools. “I recommend it for anyone,” she enthused, admitting that she had thought her endurance might have gone. “My coach said it wouldn’t have.”

In the field, European youth long jump champion Holly Mills put together a solid card that saw her reach out to a championship best of 6.00m (0.1) in the fifth round, which was good jumping in the cool, damp conditions. It’s been a great season for the South West athlete, who won the under-17 national title the week before with 5.99m. “It’s been a perfect season,” she not unsurprisingly concluded given she’s also won the English Schools and, in the long jump and 60m hurdles, national indoors titles, although she had admitted before the Loughborough competition she was slightly disappointed she hadn’t quite reached six metres in Bedford.