Alice Bennet capped a fine Track season with Brilliant Silver medal over 800m representing England at the School Games National finals, held in near perfect conditions at the Loughborough International track. Bennett, the U17 National indoor champion over 800m, came into the race short of race fitness following a break after her Bronze medal winning performance at English Schools earlier in the summer, so to secure a Silver medal is a great finish to her season with a full set of Championship medals.
England's Alice Bennet (left) with a silver medal for the Victoria all-stars
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The field assembled was high quality, and with the inclusion of athletes from all the UK this was probably a higher quality race than the English Schools final. Bennett, the UK ranked No2 athlete was in good form following a 2:10 clocking a week earlier at the same track so went into the race hoping to improve on her 6th finish in 2021.
Bennett set off steady with the objective of sitting in on the first lap and avoid taking the race out, and found herself in a comfortable 4th place in a race that was being driven by in form and recently crowned Scottish U20 Champion Hannah Taylor at a keen pace. Working on the back straight with 300m to go Bennett followed a small breakaway group of three athletes priming herself for a fast finish, Taylor continued to push in the final home straight and Bennett overhauled England’s Catlin McCloy with a significant injection of pace and continued to chase down the leader but was just unable to claw back the fast finishing Taylor who won in 2:09.52, with Bennett finishing in 2:09.91 to take the Silver Medal.
U17 Alice Bennett with a brilliant run to secure a Silver medal
Bennett and coach Shane Smith were both delighted with the Silver, particularly with her limited race fitness coming into the competition. Bennett will also take some comfort from missing out on the European U18 Championships selection in early July with a season which shows her undoubted ability to win medals at championships. The sacrifices made to her training this year to ensure her GCSE’s were top class paid off handsomely with a straight set of A’s & A*’s paving the way for her to Study her A levels at Northampton Schools for Boys.
Bennett’s day become even better after collecting her Silver medal when she was asked to represent her team, Victoria all-stars, in the Universal Relay ‘A’ final running the 2nd leg over 100m. The universal relay, the climax of the Schools Games athletics events, saw able bodied athletes & disability athletes competing together in their respective teams. Bennett was instrumental in driving the Victoria all-starts to a brilliant victory with a blistering 2nd leg, and secure the Gold medal with the teams winning margin of over 3 seconds.
Bennett now stays in training with the road relays & Mini Marathon trials next on her radar so she can build her aerobic fitness before the indoor track season commences in the winter.
Congratulations to Alice on her medal winning performance.