Tom wins Scottish decathlon crown
Senior title for Central AC star
Central AC’s Tom Chandler was celebrating his first ever Scottish title at senior level when he was crowned Scottish decathlon champion with a new club record performance at Grangemouth.
This performance is even more remarkable considering the 20 year-old from Balfron has been balancing training with university finals this year.
Competing alongside him in the 10 events over two days, was his 17 year-old brother Matt, who took on the junior decathlon, facing team mates with whom he won the Schools Combined Events international earlier this season.
The 100m was very close between them with Tom clocking 11.83s and Matt equalling his personal best with 11.84s. In the long jump Matt set a pb 6.65m to edge ahead of Tom who jumped a season’s best 6.62m and in the shot Tom threw 11.34m while Matt set another PB with 10.31m.
The high jump event saw some excellent jumping from both of them. Tom set a PB of 1.88m then Matt improved his PB to a lofty 1.91m before the first day ended with the 400m.
Tom finished with another solid performance in 51.57s followed by Matt, who completed his fifth PB of the day with 52.09s. This gave Tom an overnight score of 3416 points for second place in the senior event and Matt 3363 points for third in the juniors.
Day two saw Tom take the lead after consistent performances in the 110m hurdles (15.81s) and discus (32.60m) events. Matt was also on form with 16.05s over the junior 110m hurdles and 29.24s in the discus though he had slipped to fourth.
The highlight of the day for both of them came in the pole vault, an event in which the brothers have been improving the club senior and junior records.
They both went clear at 4.31m to give Matt a new club junior record. He was unable to clear the next height but big brother Tom improved his club senior record with 4.41m - and extended it to 4.51m.
It improved his lead in the seniors and moved Matt back into the medal positions in the juniors.
A season’s best of 47.78m for Tom and a pb 39.48m for Matt in the javelin meant strong showings in the final event - the 1500 metres would secure the title for the older sibling and bronze for the younger. Tom ran 4:33.73 and Matt’s 4:53.24 kept him in third.
Tom’s final score of 6725 points broke the club record set by Calum Brown in 2013, ranks him as the 15th highest scoring Scottish decathlete ever and makes him the first Central athlete to win this title since his former coach Kenny Pearson in 2001.
Matt’s bronze medal in a high class junior event saw him register a PB of 6279 points.
There was little time for the Chandlers to celebrate as they had to fly straight down to London for Tom’s graduation ceremony the following day where he collected his degree in Aerospace Engineering at Brunel University.
Afterwards he commented “Almost every event caught me by surprise. It was a really disappointing start as I thought I was ready to PB in the 100m and 400m. But everything else was very solid with big jumps PBs in high jump and pole vault really setting the tone for the weekend.
“My biggest strength is still my consistency and it shows in my overall decathlon points progression over the last two years since my surgery. Every decathlon has been better than the last and I hope to continue this.”