Athletics - Multi-talented three reach national finals (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Athletics - Multi-talented three reach national finals

12:08pm Saturday 18th October 2008 in Sport By Gazette Sports

THREE pupils from Queen Elizabeth School in Kirkby Lonsdale represented Cumbria at the English Schools Combined Events National Finals at the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham.

All three had successfully negotiated their way through county and regional finals to reach the prestigious final.

Seventeen-year-old Matthew Wright, competing in his first year as a senior boy in the decathlon, put in a strong performance despite being under the weather.

He produced a pb of 52.54sec in the 400m and a season's best of 4min 55.53 in the 1500m Unfortunately Matthew failed to clear a height in the pole vault which lost him over 500 points. He finished 17th with 5,203 points, his highest placing in a schools' national final.

Alisha Casement, aged 16, was competing in her first combined events national final, having made the regional final last year.

This is Alisha's first year competing in the intermediate girls' heptathlon and she achieved a long jump pb of 4m99 and a javelin pb of 19m11. She finished 21st with a score of 3,827 points.

Fourteen-year-old Oliver Blackburn was also competing in his first national final, having only taken up the event this year. Oliver was competing in the junior boys pentathlon and achieved a pb of 5m67 in the long jump - an improvement of over 40cm - and a pb of 2min19.17 in the 800m. He finished in 25th place with a score of 2,253 points.