Four called to join penathlon team
Four of Central AC’s young stars have been invited to join the Scottish Schools’ penathlon squad after fine performances at the recent championships.
Balfron High School pair Matt Chandler and Briagha Cook both won silver while Dollar Academy’s Lucy Smith and Daniel Bruce (Denny High School) both had top 10 finishes which saw them included in the national squad.
In the Group B (under 17) event, Chandler was in a tough group and opened up in the shot putt with 10.44m for third.
He then followed this with a personal best 13.91 at 100m hurdles, narrowly losing the race to Joel McFarlane of Carnoustie High School, just finishing ahead of Robbie Farquahar of Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen, who both medallsed with Matt in the UK event earlier this year.
Unfortunately Robbie had to withdraw after straining his hamstring in the hurdles leaving it a straight battle between Matt and Joel and the Balfron lad then leapt to an excellent 6.49m PB at long jump but some top class jumping from Joel (7.03m) meant Matt was still in second place.
Another PB of 23.52 in the 200m was only enough for third place and second overall and he final event - the 1500m - saw Joel pull away to win with Matt taking silver with an excellent best ever score of 3339 points.
Balfron’s Briagha Cook was also on form in the Group C (age 14) girls pentathlon. She took a clear lead at the start in her specialist 75m hurdles event in a season’s best 11.77 and increased her lead after finishing joint winner of the high jump with a personal best 1.51m.
The shot has always been a weakness for her but a PB of 7.57m kept her in the hunt for the lead only for Nicole Proudfoot of Annan Academy to throw 9.99m to go in front.
Briagha then set another excellent PB in the long jump with 5.21m but Nicole more than matched this to stretch her lead with an amazing 5.51m leap.
Going into the 800m Nicole was too far in front to challenge but Briagha had a big lead over the athletes behind her and ran a steady 2.44.45 to comfortably hold on to silver in a personal best score of 2846 points.
Lucy Smith of Dollar Academy was another experienced competitor having represented Scotland in Ireland in the pentathlon recently.
She was competing for the first time in the Group B age group as the youngest in the group but did ot disgrace herself, equalling her season’s best in the high jump (1.52m); completed her first ever 80m hurdles (13.94); long jump (4.46m) and shot putt (9.05m).
With just the 800m remaining, she needed to stay within six seconds of the fourth place athlete for land a medal but the effort proved too much and Lucy got into difficulties forcing her to stop.
Unfortunately this meant she was not able to score any points and finished in a respectable sixth place.
Denny High School’s Daniel Bruce contested the boys group C pentathlon and set personal bests in the 80m hurdles (13.16s), 200m (27.26s) and long jump (4.83m) to score 1872 points for eighth place.
Also taking part was a strong Central representation in the girls group D (under 14) category with Bannockburn High pair Naomi Howlieson and Ellie Ross joined by Balfron High’s Molly Cornes.
All three set personal bests in the various events with Molly finishing ninth on 2105 points, Naomi 17th on 1677 and Ellie finishing on 1262 points for 25th.