Photo – Lewis Church at the National Decathlon Championships
Lewis Church won the National Decathlon Championship, at Chelmsford, over the weekend after a two-day battle with training partner and Tonbridge Athletic Club teammate, Harry Kendall. The two ended up scoring 7660 and 7616 points, respectively, with Harry Lord, of Sale, finishing third with 7254 points.
For seven of the ten events Kendall had led the competition, building up a lead of 198 points on Saturday with marks of 100m in 11.13, Long Jump 7.18m, Shot Put 14.30m, High Jump 1.90m and 400m 48.17 against Church’s marks of 11.66, 6.95m, 13.97m, 2.02m and 50.69.
Kendall opened day two, on Sunday, with a personal best of 15.15 for 110 metres hurdles, but Church scored 43 points more with 14.80. Church then closed another 47 points, with a Discus throw of 43.92m, to Kendall’s 41.66m and then took the overall lead by clearing 4.73m in the Pole Vault to Kendall’s 4.23m. The ninth discipline is the Javelin, one that is a stronger event for Kendall and so it proved as he threw 55.35m to Church’s 53.89m. This reduced Church’s lead to just 16 points, before the final event, the 1500 metres.
The 1500 metres is a relatively strong event for Church and he knew that just by staying ahead of Kendall it would be enough to win the competition. Church paced the race sensibly and ran 4.34.77, with Kendall not far behind in 4.39.15, confirming them in the top two slots.
Also at the championships, Guy Thomas won the 5000 metres walk in 21.28.77, continuing a strong Tonbridge AC racewalking tradition, whilst Alasdair Kinloch had a good run to finish 3rd in the 5000 metres in 14.35.41. Jordan Chambers and Ben Murphy both finished 5th in their 800m and 1500m finals, respectively, whilst Ollie White placed 3rd in the men’s paralympic 1500 metres. In the heats of the men’s 400m, Kieran Eland ran a personal best of 47.92, to become only the third Tonbridge athlete to ever dip under 48 seconds for the event.
On Saturday, Tonbridge hosted the final match of the UK Youth Development League, for the under 13 and 15 teams. They finished 3rd of the six clubs, which was enough to keep them in second place overall in the Southern Premier Division and qualify for the National Final, at the beginning of September.
In the under 15 age group there were A-string wins from Edward Tyler (Hammer 47.05m), William Law (Javelin 47.96m), Elsa Pawson (Pole Vault 2.80m) and Olivia Pilbeam (Hammer 30.84m pb). The under 13s also notched up four A-string wins from Victor Watling (High Jump 1.48m), Sam Foster (Javelin 34.60m), Tiffany Oyewade (70m hurdles 11.93) and the Boys’ 4x100m relay team in 53.75. Samuel Gibson also set Tonbridge AC under 13 boys’ club records over 75m and 150m, with 10.11 and 19.44.
Other highlights from the last week, included Lucy Reid winning the Standard Chartered Great City 5km Race, on Tuesday, in London in 16.03. On Friday, Jack Higgins won the Medway Mile in 4.11.52. On Saturday, Steve Strange improved his own record by one second at the Tunbridge Wells parkrun, when he ran 15.47.