U20 Alice Bennett, Kettering’s top ranked 800m athlete ran a superb mid-week race to secure the all-important Commonwealth Youth standard Qualification mark by almost a second. Bennett competing in the BMC Gold Standard race at the Birmingham University track, powered her way to a new PB, and set an U20 Age Group Club Record with a 2:07.20 clocking, a time which ranks her the UK’s top year 1 U20, and 8th in the Commonwealth U18 standings.
Bennett ran a positive race sticking with the front leaders just off the pacemakers who were set up for Birmingham’s Izzy Boffey to run a sub 2:00 clocking. Splitting in a fast 60.5 sec, Bennett continued to chase the pack and finished much stronger than her previous two opening races to run down the clock and smash through the 2:08 qualification standard with a new lifetime best.
Alice Bennett with a superb race to secure the Commonwealth Youth Qualification time, a PB & U20 Club Record!
Bennett has opened her 2023 track campaign in style running agonisingly just 0.04 outside of the standard 2:08 (2:08.04) in her opening race and 2:08.24 in race 2 and has shown wonderful consistency so far. Bennett currently sits as the second fastest U18 in England, behind U17 sensation Phoebe Gill who is ranked number 1 in the commonwealth for 800m with a 2:03.10 clocking third on the UK all time list.
Bennett was also in action just days later in the BMC Grand Prix at Loughborough in an important head-to-head meeting with the only other English U18 athlete to have run the commonwealth standard, Caitlin McCloy (2:07.65). Bennett with the faster time was able run the race tactically and just ensure she beat her rival, which could be important factor during the selecting meeting. With the pacemaker splitting 400m in a very slow 65 seconds, some 5 seconds slower than planned, Bennett was not going to attempt a fast time so continued to run within herself, feeling strong Bennett easily held off a challenge from McCloy at the 600m mark and then powered away from her rival to finish in 2nd place clocking a modest 2:10.78 but most importantly ahead of McCloy who clocked 2:14.01.
With limited places up for grabs for Team England athletes hoping to compete at the 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad & Tobago in early August, Bennett will be hopeful she retails her ranking position until the selection meting takes place on 19th June. With competitors potentially racing midweek & opportunities for bottom year U20 athletes to run a quicker time than Bennett at the U20 Championships in Chelmsford, it will be a tense week for the 17-year-old.
Coach Shane Smith was full of praise for his protege “Alice has started the season in great form and taken the fight to the other U18 athletes in England and she is in a good position with a week to the selection meeting”. He added, “Alice works incredibly hard, and she desperately wants to follow in the footsteps of the other squad members who have represented GB/ England at Major International Championships, she was incredibly unfortunate to not be selected for the GB U18 squad last year when ranked 8th in Europe & the third fastest U18 athlete in the UK”.
Also running a superb race at the Birmingham Gold Standard was U20 Alice bates who in just her 2nd 1500m this season ran a terrific race to slice over 3.5 seconds from her PB, but agonisingly just 0.14 outside of the European U20 Championship qualification mark of 4:22. Bates was in a high quality race in the BMC woman’s ‘A’ Gold standard race and she was in a determined mood following just of the pace she finished the race with a superb 67 lap, taking places through to the line to set a lifetime best of 4:22.14.
Alice Bates (93) flanked by Emily Williams with a superb new 1500m PB just 0.14 sec off the Euro U20 Qualification time
Bates who along with many in her age group has had the additional difficulties of sacrificing time to her studies as she currently sits her A levels and has had to try to balance all her time and energy between study and training and has at times been running on empty.
Bates will be hopeful of setting the standard and gaining selection to compete at U20 European Championships at the same venue in Jerusalem as she did in the European U18 Championships in 2022. She faces the tricky prospect of the U20 trail race at Chelmsford in a week's time where a good performance will do her chances of selection no harm, but if she does not set the qualification time at the U20 Championships then she will have just 3 weeks to run a time to put herself into contention before the team is selected on 10th July.
Also competing in the same race was U23 Emily Williams who ran a strong race of 4:27.53 but was unable to improve on her seasons opening time (4:24.18) set 10 days earlier.
Bulgarian National U18 Championships
Also, in action over the weekend was U17 Maggie Gancheva who was competing at the Bulgarian National U18 Championships in Sofia. Gancheva was competing in the 1500m and she finished in a magnificent third place with a SB performance of 4:54.xx just seconds off her PB. Gancheva who has been coming into good form after a difficult opening period in the 2023 season was delighted with her performance and after finishing 2nd in the 800m in the Bulgarian National Indoor Championships earlier in the year, she has well and truly put herself on the radar for possible selection in 2024 for the Bulgarian national U18 team in the European U18 Championships.
Maggie Gancheva (2128) with a magnificent Bronze medal in the Bulgarian U18 Championships
Midland Counties master’s Championships
Vet 45 David Locker was also in action at the Midland Counties master’s Championships where he was competing in the V35-V45 800m race. Competing against x5 athletes his junior Locker put in a Brilliant Performance to finish second overall in the race with his fastest clocking over the distance in almost 2 years with 2:00.94. Locker secured the V45 Gold from Cannock & Stafford A.C’s Andrew Cotterill and on current form he looks likely to challenge the 2:00 mins barriers this season which will remain his main gold this season.
Well done to everyone who ran.