On Bank Holiday Monday 2 of Thanet AC’s U13 girls ventured over to Tonbridge to compete in the annual County Combined Events Champs. Sir Mo Farah was present at this event with one of his daughters so the girls were eager to impress!!
Mia Brady and Bella Winfield, fresh from watching KJT at the recent Paris Olympics, were gunning to follow in her footsteps!
Mia Brady a year ago as a first year U13 competed in this very event and finished 9th, but was extremely determined to try and get amongst the medals. She started off with a PB in the 70mH (12.19s) to take the lead before moving on to the high jump. She kept her parents on the edge of their seat hear when she had to depart the competition half way through to see the on site physio because of an ongoing back issue. When she came back the bar was already higher than her previous personal best of 1.27m, but she went on to clear 1.30m, and then her final clearance of 1.33m which just about kept her in the lead overall.
Mia Brady - High Jump
The next event was the shot putt, but Mia continued her great day with another personal best of 6.85m, but this wasn’t enough to stop her from moving into 2nd place.
Moving on to the long jump she had a few issues with her run up, but on the 3rd and final jump she managed to produce her second best ever jump of 3.91m to keep her in 2nd place.
Mia Brady - Long Jump
Last of all was the dreaded 800m, and Mia knew that it was going to be very close between her and 3rd place to see which way round the medals would finish. Mia ran her second quickest ever 800m time (2:58.44) even though she was holding her back from start to finish, but she narrowly missed out on the silver medal by 5 points (which is the equivalent to around 0.6s!).
Mia’s final total of 1981 points to win the bronze medal smashed her previous best points score of 1778.
Bella Winfield was competing in a Pentathlon for the very first time, and a few of the events she has never competed in, so it was a very daunting experience for her when everyone else is also nearly 2yrs older than her!
Bella started off in the hurdles with her first PB of 15.28s and considering this was the first time that she has done a complete race of 3 strides between each hurdle it was a great race for her.
Bella Winfield - 70mH
Next was the high jump, and having only cleared 1.05m in training her end result in this competition was 1.12m and again, another personal best performance.
The third event was the shot and with Bella continuing to grow it was always going to be a bit of a struggle, but she took a lot of information on board and threw a very competitive personal best distance of 3.75m.
The fourth event was the long jump and pulled a personal best mark of 3.44m out in the final round to keep the positive momentum going before taking on the last event of the day in the 800m.
Bella Winfield - Long Jump
This was probably Bella’s best event of the day because she has only run 3:19.00 before, and today was the time to shine because she produced a superb display of grit and determination to clock a 3:00.18 personal best to finish on 1228 points in a very respectable 12th place.
Lead coach Darren Hatton said “Mia and Bella are a massive inspiration and credit to the club. I couldn’t of asked for anymore from both of them, and their will and drive to do their absolute best is something that I look forward to seeing develop over the next 8-10yrs!!!!”
Darren Hatton
This is a fantastic achievement, requiring real effort in consistently training rain or shine and using the nerves at the event as a tool to excel.
Behind every athlete is a coach (s) and family that supports them, feeds, drives and motivates.
All of us at your club - Thanet Athletics Club share in your success and our very proud of you.
Julien Lawton
Chair - Thanet Athletic Club