Marianna Owen, capped an excellent debut season for the Harriers with a brilliant Silver medal in the England Athletics National U15 Championships in the 3000m.
Marianna Owen 3000m Silver Medal in the England Athletics U15 National Championships
Owen who joined the Harriers 1 year ago has progressed fantastically well in her new environment, winning her first England vest at the finale of the XC season, English Schools Championships, winning a team Gold for England. She followed up with some fine performances in the 1500m, improving her time by over 14 seconds and then setting a new 3000m club record by over 25 seconds.
Owen went into the race a relative novice, only ever running the 3000m track distance once in her career, and never competing at the distance in any championship, so although she was well ranked in the event this was a steep learning curve for her. Having missed progression from the heats a few weeks earlier at English Schools she was determined to finish the season well and finish on the podium. The race was a combined U15 & U17 final.
Owen started well setting into her running, and comfortably sitting in the main pack for the first km, split in a fast 3:13. With the runaway U15 UK leader Kara Gorman challenging the best of the U17 athletes at the front the field began to stretch out during the 2nd km and sensibly Owen sat back and locked on to the second placed U15 Girl Anna Wait, splitting the second km in 3:23.
With 800m to go, Owen cruised past Wait into Silver medal position, and quickly opened a gap which she extended to the bell. Owen continued to push hard on her final lap with Marther Blower putting in a superb late effort to reel in the tiring Wait, and move into a medal position. Owen had opened a significant gap on Blower which she was unable to close, leaving Owen to cruise in and secure her first ever National medal in 2nd place in 10:03.89, which was also a 2 second PB and new Club Record.
Marianna Owen moves into Silver medal position with 2 laps to go
Owen was delighted with her race, especially as this was her first competitive outing at this distance, and to finish her debut track season for the Harriers in such fine style was particular pleasing for the 14 year old. Coach Shane Smith was equally delighted for his new protege,
“Marianna has worked incredibly hard over the past year and is a model of consistency. She was bitterly disappointed to not progress to the English Schools 1500m final a few weeks earlier, but she showed great character to bounce back at an event where she is a complete novice, and to win a National Championship Silver in her first season is a brilliant achievement”.
Owen now takes a well-earned 2 week break before returning to training, fully focused on the upcoming Midland Counties Road Relays in September.
Also competing at the U15 & U17 Championships were Clara Booth in the U15G 800m. Booth had spent the week leading up to the Friday heats at a Hockey training camp and sadly she did not able to perform at her best, missing the qualification mark to progress to the final.
U17 Peyton Almond also missed progression to the final competing in the U17W 300m which she was competing in just for experience at the longer sprint event.
Well done to everyone who ran & congratulations to Marianna on her Silver Medal.