We wish the best of luck to Emily Williams, Jack Hope & Erin Healy who will be proudly representing the Harriers & their Northamptonshire County in the English Schools National Championships on Friday 09th & Sat 10th July at the Gateshead International athletics stadium.
KTH Englsh Schools representitives, Emily Jack & Erin
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The ESAA National Championships are the pinnacle of the sport for school age athletes and it’s the 4th largest athletics event in the World... staged each year since the 1930’s.
Organised entirely by volunteer teachers, they bring together the best athletes in each County in England to compete for the honour of being the best athlete in the Country at their event.
Entry to the event is by virtue of athletes being selected by County Team Managers to represent their County.
Prime consideration is given to performances at County Championships which are normally held sometime around the 2nd week of June, but other outstanding performances at other events may be taken into consideration.
Nearly all the UK Olympic Athletics team members have featured in the ESAA Championships and there is a rich history associated with these championships.
14 year old Emily Williams, who is the current English Schools Cross Country champion, is competing at the championships for the second year running at 800m. In 2015 she qualified through the heats, and finished in a superb 7th place in the final setting PB’s in both races. She would have gained from this experience and goes into the championships in terrific shape, ranked 3rd in the UK at 800m, and having lowered her 2015 club record on 3 occasions this season.
18 year old Jack Hope is running at the championships also for the second time, he competed in 2014 as an intermediate boy in the 1500m steeplechase, & set this years qualification time and PB of 6:09.07 in his second race of the season and he is currently ranked 7th in the UK. This will be Jacks last English Schools race before he departs into University life after the summer, so he will be hoping to put in a top performance!
14 year old Erin from the sprint group will be experiencing the Championships for the first time. And this is a great opportunity to gain valuable experience of competition at the highest level. Erin has had a wonderful start to the season under the guidance of new Coach Antoinette Innis-Haycox (Ann), hitting both the 100m & 200m qualification times for English schools.
You can watch Jack, Erin & Emily in action by viewing the ESAA championships on a live video stream from VINCO, www.runjumpthrow.com/ Emily competing in the Junior Girls 800m heats is racing at 4:16pm on Friday 09th July & to gain automatic qualification for the final on the following day Emily will need to finish in the top 2 of her heat or one of the two fastest losers.
Should Emily make the final the race will be on Saturday at 4:27pm. Jack’s straight final for the 2k steeplechase starts at 11:40am. Erin’s 200m heats will also be on the Saturday at 10:00am, also with the first two qualifying automatically for the final which will be at 3:57pm together with the two fastest losers.
Kettering Town Harriers is rightly proud to have three athletes representing the club and we wish them the very best.