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English Schools Championship

Sunday 14th July 2024

Incredible standards at English Schools

5 Phoenix athletes made the journey to Birmingham for the highlight of many young athletes competitive year, the English Schools Championships. Just being able to meet the selection qualifying standards does not even guarantee you a place in your county team, so you can imagine the quality on show at this meeting.

Five Phoenix athletes made their county teams, three (Miles Waterworth, Katherine Haslip and Owen Wallek) for Sussex and two (Sam Stapeley and Ethan Curran) for Surrey.

On Friday in the 1500 heats, Katherine pushed the pace, leading for 1300 metres and even after being overtaken in the last 200, showed great resilience to fight all the way down the home straight and just fail to make the top three  but running a big personal best of 4.37 in 4th and taking the second of the time-based qualifying places for the final. In itself that is a fantastic result bearing in mind her sporadic track work this summer. In the 800 heats Ethan had 'one of those days' and wasn't able to get to the final.

Saturday saw Owen and Sam with the tall task of running heats and final of the 1500 on the same day. Sam didn't manage to get through, but has another chance next year. Owen, also with another year in the same age category, had a clear run and comfortably made top three to book his place a few hours later in the final.

Miles, following a lengthy spell of injury, knew he faced an uphill task in the 3k event which was a straight final.  He moved towards the front of the field at the last lap bell, but ultimately his lack of training told and was unable to stay in the medal hunt, but held on well to place 5th in the large field of 20+ athletes.

In the final of the 1500, Owen stayed with the main pack until the final lap, but in a tactical race with an extremely fast last lap, he wasn't able to match the finishing speed of the leaders. Congratulations to Alex Reilly of Brighton & Hove who dominated the sprint for the line to win.