Bethany and Gracie Shine at National Combined Events

Last month saw Bethany Shimmen-Smith and Gracie Lawton take centre stage at the National Combined Events Championships staged at the National Indoor Arena in Sheffield.

Bethany Shimmen-Smith and Gracie Lawton in their element at Sheffield EIS. 

Bethany, fresh off of her first National competition back in September, sought out to destroy her previous points score in the Pentathlon. With 4 out of 5 best ever performances it was clear that she meant business.

Her first event, the 60mH, took her out to her first personal best of 10.02s before moving on to her favourite event in the high jump. Here she cleared another personal best of 1.56m (narrowly missing 1.59m!) to set her up nicely for the shot putt. In this event she threw a lifetime best of 7.57m before swiftly moving into the long jump. This was her only of the day recording below her best, but it was still a more than average jump 4.74m to set her mindset up perfectly for the 800m. Although Bethany dreads this event it shows how far she has come as a 3 second personal best of 2:34.25 here gave her over 400 points improvement on her overall score from before to place her 15^th overall and 2900 points exactly.

Bethany sailing over the high jump on her way to an overall points PB. 

Gracie, competing in her first ever National Combined Events Championships, came into this with a small shin injury. Knowing that she wasn’t at full strength shows the commitment that Gracie has to compete.

She started off with a personal best in the hurdles of 12.45s before going to the high jump. Trying to jump as little as possible she managed to clear an above average mark of 1.41m before taking her frustration out in the shot with a big personal best of 8.10m. Next on the agenda for Gracie was the long jump where she came away with a best effort of 4.13m before completing the day for her in the 800m to have a cumulative points score of 1791 points.

Gracie showing resiliance in her first Pentathlon as an U20.

Both girls battled extremely well considering they can only get to an athletics track once a week by travelling over an hour to get there.

Coach Darren Hatton said “Technical work has been limited with just the one session a week, but hopefully soon we will have a closer track to use 2-3 times a week again. It’s a wonder that they have done this well so full credit to them!!”

• Darren Hatton