Young Athletes Page

Kent Track Relays 2007

At Norman park, Bromley, we came away with two team medals, both at 3 x 800m : we succesfully defended one of the 3 titles gained last year, and we also gained a team bronze thanks mainly to exciting performances from both newcomers and from members whose improvement is down to regular training in the club's junior squads.

Our u-13 Boys (Louis Duprez, Jake Rogers & Jack Balsdon) retained the title collected by last year's record breaking trio, Chris Thomas, Jack Balsdon and Sam Hudson. Louis Duprez - youngest athlete in the whole race - gave the reds a steady start with a focused run and a super sprint finish for 4th place. Jake Rogers, a newcomer to 800m who prefers the 1,500m, carved his way through the field with a scintillating run to give the lone runner from last year's winning squad, Jack Balsdon, a commanding lead. Jack, currently ranked 17th in the whole country at 800m and No.1 in Kent, majestically retained the lead to cross the line in 7mins 25.7 secs, 3 tenths of a second better that last year's IEK record of 7:26.0 and 16 seconds ahead of Blackheath Bromley's strong trio.

Our under 15 Girls struck bronze with a collective time of 7mins 30.3, a mere half second outside Invicta's 10 year-old age record of 7:29.7, set when this title was last held by a red-vested trio of Lisa Crow (now with the BBC Sports Service) Marika Hayward and England runner Diana Jeffery. This year's team medal owes is all to Chaucer Technology student, Beth Burnett who showed how much she has improved since joining the club 18 months ago : with regular league outings this season over 1.500m, Beth showed she has the depth of fitness to cope with both heats and final. Beth she duly delivered when she gave everything on the opening leg of both heat and the final - English Schools athlete Emily Hosker Thornhill worked her way up the field to 4th with her customary tenacious performance, then club 800m record holder Rebecca Weston stormed round to a team bronze medal just behind Tonbridge and Blackheath Bromley. Pictures by Jenny Weston and Lea Burnett

Beth's race at Crystal Palace

Race photos, taken by Rowan Williams, one of Beth Carter's training stablemates, show Beth came 7th in a field of 18 in front of more than 15,000 spectators at the International Grand Prix in a special 'developmental' race for tomorrow's potential stars.
A dozen top ranked u-20 athletes + the best five u-17s were invited specially to the Grand Prix as part of UK Athletics programme to acclimatize talent to the caldron of the international arena. This is the 2nd time one of our training group has had this honour - Charlotte Dale was invited to race 1,500m the year before she won the English Schools 3,000m in 2000.
A mighty contingent of nearly 30 Invicta members turned up to support Beth: she's very quiet but very popular with all her team mates, including Chris Little (u-15 boy) who knows he's never going to win a county title, let alone be invited to this level, but who personally made a 'Go Beth' banner which he then got autographed for her by both Linford Christie and Tyson Gay, as well as the whole Invicta squad.
The photos take show Beth limbering up with Emily Pidgeon (ranked UK No.3 at u-20)..... to racing/beating Jessica Burns (green vest - winner English Schools last month)..... to also beating Katie Knowles who was 3rd in front of Beth at last year's 1500m AAA, when Beth was 6th. Katie Knowles has a 3,000m best this year of 9mins 30 to rank her 5th at u-20.....
The girl who dropped out at half way (right in front of Beth) was Olivia Kenny who is ranked 7th at u-20 with a best of 9mins 34.... It all means Beth beat a number of illustrious rivals, all much older and much more experienced at these grand occasions, AND...... Beth was within touching distance of the country's best u-17, Charlotte Purdue who is one year older than Beth.
Statistic of the night: the winner, Emma Pallant (Aldershot) who is better known as an 800m runner, started the Grand Prix race with identical pb as Beth for 3,000m..... She is 3 years older than Beth, and she surprised everyone by winning AND by improving her time by an unprecedented 24 seconds.
Emma Pallant has run the 3,000m only 15 times in the last four seasons - half of them at the age Beth is now. In all those races she dipped under 10 mins only once each season - a total of 5 times - every one of Beth's six races this season have ALL been under 10 mins.
What is more, Pallant's best ever before the Grand Prix was 9mins 47.5 secs and that was THIS season: amazingly, that race time is almost identical to Beth's best time..... But we have to remember she is a 2nd year u-20 and therefore 3 years older than Beth.
Beth went into the Grand Prix fresh from not overtraining and with a carefully prepared race strategy which prompted her mum to comment that Beth looked very mature and professional by picking off rivals one by one. The photos show that after 250m she was back in 16th, which means she didn't panic but gradually overtook 9 rivals, all from the top couple of dozen in the country.

There are four coaches in our training group - every one of us is as proud of Beth in this race as we have been in all her races since she joined our training squad three years ago, and we now all ask for her autograph every time she trains.....

Report by James Roberts

Invicta Athletes to compete in English Schools

Kent Schools team of 60 to compete in the National Championships in Birmingham (Fri 12/Sat 13 July) includes 5 Invicta-trained students - all female, 3 of them having recently set all-time Invicta female records.

Simon Langton student, Melissa Cooper earned English Schools silver in last year's hammer throw for Intermediate Girls (years 10 & 11) behind Hayley Murray, the UK no. 1 from Warwickshire. Cooper's 45.88m was her first all-time Invicta female best and this season she has already twice improved that mark to a prodigious 48.66m to rank her No.2 in the country at u-20 - next month Melissa locks horns again with Murray in the Senior Girls hammer.

Emmeline Rendell (school n/k) last year set an IEK all-time female pole vault record of 2.85m which she has twice improved this season - first to 2.90m, then to 3.00m - to become the first Invicta female in the club's history to clear the magical 3 metre mark. Emmeline makes her debut in the Intermediate age group.

Three students from Invicta's vibrant young middle distance squad make their track debut at these championships - Beth Carter and Rebecca Weston - both at Kent College - each represented English Schools at the Home International cross-country in Dublin in March : Beth (u-17) is currently ranked No.4 in the country at 3,000m, while Rebecca is selected for the Junior Girls 1,500m having also posted qualifying times for the 800m in a 4-week spree that has seen her set new u-15 Invicta records for both events.

Emily Hosker Thornhill (Simon Langton) is the third Invicta squad member selected and goes in the Junior Girls 800m, having recently improved Rebecca's 800m mark as well as bettering the all-time 1,000m Invicta record held previuosly by Charlotte Dale (Whitstable) herself an English Schools 3,000m winner in year 2000.

Kent Schools Athletics Match

The Kent Schools competition, on Saturday 9th March, saw 4 Invicta East Kent high jumpers qualify for the Schools Inter Counties to be held the following weekend. Junior Girls Hannah Ridge (1.47m) and Sophie Montgomery (1.38m) performed near their personal bests to win gold and silver respectively. Hannah is the current Kent 2007 Champion and a shining example and mentor to Sophie, a year younger.
Intermediate boys Callum Barling-Jeffrey (1.77m) and Kobe Tilbury (1.65m pb) also gave consistent performances to take silver and bronze. Callum (Kent silver medalist) and Kobe are in their 1st year in the age group and were beaten only by the current Kent Champion, Jamie Farrel (1.80m) from Bexley who is in his 2nd year of the age group.
Hannah, Callum and Sophie will be competing at the intercounties next week, with Kobe a reserve.

Three Invicta Athletes of Match in the National Young Athletes League

Jack Balsdon and Rebecca Weston both earned their award at the first match, away in St Albans (both for 800m) and Emily HT got hers two weeks ago (also for 800m) on the very track pictured.... when Invicta were hosts.

Team Manager Mick Rendell is presenting the A-of-M T-shirt to Emily HT

High Jump Squad Win Kent Medals

Katie Hamilton, Matt Smiley, Callum Barling-Jeffery and Hannah Ridge were 4 Invicta athletes at the Kent Indoor championships (Sutton Arena in Carshalton) on 3 & 4 March. Except for Callum, this was the first competition of the 2007 season and a chance to see how much their winter strength-and-conditioning training had contributed to their overall fitness and ability.
Was all that stamina work, round the track on cold, wet winter nights worth it? When legs, arms, (and other parts of the body they previously were unaware of) were screaming and burning (from rigorous circuit, medicine ball and core stability sessions) were they now going to reap the benefit?... Answer : a great big 'yes !'
Katie had a particularly exiting competition which concluded with a jump-off, ending with both athletes having to clear jumps to 1.50m

 

News

Kent League - The first Kent League Cross Country was well attended by Invicta members see event page for more photo's. Also visit The Forum for more about the Kent League.

Beth's race at Crystal Palace - Beth Carter's supporters

Race photos, taken by Rowan Williams, one of Beth Carter's training stablemates, show Beth came 7th in a field of 18 in front of more than 15,000 spectators at the International Grand Prix in a special 'developmental' race for tomorrow's potential stars. See young athletes page for full report and event photos.

NYAL Canterbury - Results - Results available for the Canterbury match of the National Young Athletes league, see event page.

Invicta athletes to compete at Nat. Schools Champs - Kent Schools team of 60 to compete in the National Championships in Birmingham (Fri 12/Sat 13 July) includes 5 Invicta-trained students - all female, 3 of them having recently set all-time Invicta female records. See
young athletes page for full report.

Kent Schools Athletics Champs - Twenty Invicta club-trained athletes reached the finals of their event at the annual county schools championship, which also serves as a primary meeting for individuals to be selected to represent the county team to compete at the English Schools in mid-July - this year at Birmingham.... see young athletes page for full report.