Heneghan is a winner at the end of season

TEAM Bath AC’S Alannah Heneghan has made quite an impact in her first serious season as a high jumper.

In the few competitions that eventually did take place in the COVID-19 shortened campaign, the 13-year-old not only smashed her personal best to rise to third in the UK Rankings for under-15 girls but also showed she has a strong competitive streak.

Just seven days after setting that excellent personal best of 1.63m, Heneghan signed off her season with a hard-earned victory at the Mark Cawte Open meeting in Swindon on Sunday.

There was no PB this time but Heneghan showed she has what it takes to win competitions as she fought off strong opposition to win at the County Ground track with her third and final effort.

“I didn’t do so well with my first two jumps [at 1.61m] so I was under pressure to clear with my last one which I did so I was pleased with that,” said Heneghan.

“It was an okay competition.” Considering that Heneghan, who is a member of Di Viles’ bright young group of jumpers, started the season jumping 1.45m and now ends it on 1.63m and amongst the best high jumpers of her age group in the UK it

■ MOTORSPORT

■ has been a remarkable summer for all sorts of reasons.

“It has been really good,” added Heneghan.

“I have made quite a big improvement this season and that has been down to a lot of hard work over the winter and then during lockdown I used a gym we have in our garage. It all helped.”

Viles is also working hard on the technical aspects of the event and will be looking to build upon this season’s success for next year when hopefully the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic will be behind us and the sport can enjoy a more normal summer.

“I have another year as an under-15 athlete so I am very excited about 2021,” added Heneghan.

Also at Swindon, fellow Team Bath AC sprinters Joe Carter and Eleni Francis clocked 23.65secs and 27.47secs respectively in the 200m, with all the times affected by the brisk headwind. Carter also tried the long jump for the first time and claimed a useful 6.03m while Francis, who is coached by Colin Baross, jumped a PB of 5.36m.

In the middle distance events there were PBS for Sophie Moore in both the 800m and 1,500m.

■ DAMIAN Hall hasn’t ruled out an attempt to regain his record for running the South West Coast Path.

The Box-based international ultra runner lost the record last weekend when Kristian Morgan completed the 630 miles, which represents the UK’S longest National Trail from Poole Harbour (Dorset) to Minehead (Somerset), in a time of ten days, 12 hours and six minutes.

That beat Hall’s record, which he set in 2016, by just over three hours. Prior to that it was held by Mark Berry, who ran it in 11 days eight hours and 15 mins.

“I always thought that the record could be broken and while I don’t like losing it fair play to Kristian as I know how hard that run is,” said Hall, a former winner of the Running Bath/ Chron performance of the month competition.

Hall knows he could have run the distance quicker as he was slowed in the opening few days when his running partner developed a knee injury,

■ MOTORSPORT only speeding up when he was left to finish the route alone.

But has he the physical capability and crucially the mental desire to subject himself to his gruelling ordeal again?

“I have no immediate plans and it certainly won’t be this year or next year as I have other plans in the pipeline but I would never say never,” added Hall.

“Kristian’s time is tantalisingly close enough to my record that I think it is possible; and he ran through the night on the final day to beat me whereas I rested a little.

“If he had beaten the time by a day or so then I might have thought it was beyond me but we will see. It could happen – watch this space.”

■ The athletics coverage in the Chron is sponsored by Running Bath.

PICTURE: Paul Korkus A limited number of spectators were able to see the NG Road Racing Motorcycle Grand National meeting at Castle Combe on the weekend as the circuit celebrated it’s 70th anniversary. The King of Combe, held over three races, was won by Daniel Cooper on his Honda CBR 600cc supersport machine. Local rider Gary Stevens competed on his BMW 1000 RR and, after a great wheel-to-wheel dice with Melksham’s Steve Lake, finished 12th in his second race behind Lake. In the third race, the pair had another great dice with Stevens finishing 10th and Lake 12th. Stevens was also ninth in his second powerbike race with Trowbridge’s Chris Oliver tenth. Meanwhile, Bath’s Josh Cook notched up three top ten places in his BTC Racing Backed Honda Civic Type R at the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship at Silverstone. He was tenth in his first race and sixth in the second. Starting fourth in the final race, Cook was third by lap six before the safety car was deployed after Rory Butcher suffered a dramatic crash and Cook ultimately finished seventh.

PICTURE: Jakob Ebrey Under cold and blustery conditions, round five of the Ginetta Junior Championship was held at Silverstone. With two new Bathbased supporters on board - Bath Water and Visit Bath - local racer Bailey Voisin secured double pole position for races one and two and converted the first into a race win. Race two proved a little more difficult and, in a shortened race following two red-flag incidents, he managed a solid second. Race three, televised live on ITV2, was the most nail-biting as Voisin gained the lead on lap two but was under constant pressure, however he managed to ahead of the chasing pack for a second win of the weekend to regain the overall Championship lead

Alannah Heneghan ended her COVID-19 shortened season with victory at the weekend