TEN promising young athletes from the region are making the long journey to Gateshead as part of the Devon team for the English Schools’ Track and Field Championships.
The event, the highlight in the junior domestic calendar, is taking place on Friday and Saturday at the famous North East athletics venue.
Plymouth and West Devon are particularly well represented in the junior and senior girls’ categories.
Plymstock School have three representatives in the senior girls’ age group, with Jade Simson and Jenna Bierton competing in the 100m hurdles and Victoria Weir in the 1,500m steeplechase.
Weir (pictured above) is ranked in the UK’s top five for the event at under-20 level and so will be viewed as a serious medal contender.
City of Plymouth hurdler Simson has been struggling with a hamstring injury for most of the season but has travelled and will be hoping to do herself justice at Gateshead International Stadium.
Another City of Plymouth athlete, Poppy Tank, will also compete in the senior girls’ competition. The Plymouth College pupil will run the 1,500m.
In the junior girls’ section, Sammie Harris (pictured) will be hoping to challenge for a medal in the long jump. The Erme Valley Harrier is ranked joint fifth in the UK under-15 rankings.
Her Ivybridge Community College team-mate Mia O’Daly will compete in the discus and Plymouth High School for Girls’ Jenny Milburn will run the 800m.
Plymouth College’s Lily Mills and Tor Bridge High’s Aimee-Leigh Clowes will represent the city in the intermediate girls’ category. Mills will compete in the javelin and Clowes in the high jump.
Eggbuckland Community College Ethan Hardie will take part in junior boys’ discus.
Hardie is the only male athlete from Plymouth and West Devon competing in Gateshead after Will Battershill, who won the steeplechase event last year, had to withdraw because of his selection for the IAAF World Youth Championships in Colombia.
Meanwhile, former city schoolboy David King will run in the heats of the 110m hurdles at the European Under-23 Championships in Tallinn on Friday morning.