National Debut For Thanet AC Girls

Bethany Shimmen-Smith and Amber Jackson took centre stage in Chelmsford at the English Schools Combined Events and Race Walking Championships.

Amber Jackson, fresh from her County winning performance the previous weekend, went a step higher competing against both boys and girls in a mixed U13 race in the English Schools 1500m race walk. She battled around to finish in a superb 8^th place with her smile at the end shining so bright as this is still such a new event for her. She has taken to it so well and looks forward to learning a lot more about the event over the coming months to come out and be even stronger next season.

Amber Jackson at Chelmsford English Schools. Photo By: Linda Hardy.

Bethany Shimmen-Smith qualified for the English Schools Combined Events with 3 other Kent girls in not only a bid to get herself as high up the 36 strong field as possible, but also in a bid to see if the Kent team could place in the top 3 County teams to win a medal.

Bethany started off with the 100m hurdles, and even into a headwind she managed to win her heat and in the process smash her lifetime best with a time of 16.67s.

Next on the agenda was the high jump and Bethany kept the momentum going recording her second best ever clearance with a height of 1.53m.

The third event of the day was the shot putt where a distance of 7.18m was a little below par, but didn’t lose many points on what was becoming a solid first day.

The 200m was something that Bethany was looking forward to, but with the wind getting stronger as the day went on it was very apparent that Bethany would have to settle for a slower time than she was wanting. Her run of 28.43s was only 0.37s off of her personal best. With the majority of the athletes running 0.8s slower than normal, Bethany could take huge heart that she was in shape to run well under 28s with the correct conditions.

Bethany basking in the glory of her PB and being crowned English Schools team champions. Photo By: Nick Purt.

Day 2 started with the long jump, and unlike previous competitions Bethany managed to get jumps in early in the competition to steady her nerves. A best of 4.71m was very solid and kept the points score ticking over.

Bethany’s penultimate event, the javelin, is an event that next season will improve, but for this event anything around the 20m marker would give Bethany enough points to still be on for a good score overall. Her best throw of 20.06m was welcomed by her family and supporters to leave her with one event to go.

In the past Bethany has felt like she has unfinished business with the 800m, so with a different approach she told her coach that she really was going to commit to running a personal best………….. and boy did she not disappoint. Throwing her previous personal best of 2:43.00 aside Bethany ran her heart out on the way to a 2:37.17 huge personal best!

Not only was Bethany’s score of 3611pts a massive personal best, but her points tally was a vital part of making sure that Kent secured the gold medal as the winning County in the Senior Girls event.

Matilda Secker, Ella Thomas, Eve Morgan and Bethany Shimmen-Smith aloft the top step of the podium after making Kent, English Schools Combined Events Champions. Photo By: Nick Purt.

Her Grandad, Nick Purt, who recently received an award at the Veteran Recognition Awards for his contribution to the community and Thanet AC said “It was so nice to see Bethany compete on her biggest stage yet. She has worked so hard and to get such a big overall points score shows that hard work pays off.”

Bethany will now take 2 weeks off before going into winter training in a bid to go even better this coming season.

• Darren Hatton