Flannery sets junior record to take prize

Jun 29 2009 The Journal

GATESHEAD’S Niall Flannery led some good performances from North East athletes to take the Under-20 400m hurdles title at the English Junior Championships at Bedford.

Flannery clocked a personal best time of 51.07secs and clipped four-hundredths of a second off the Championship record.

Stacey Smith of Gateshead, who like Flannery already held a qualifying standard for the European Junior Championships next month, won a hotly contested Under-20 1500m.

In the same age group, Lauren Dewdney (Gateshead) won the 100m hurdles and Sally Scott (Gateshead) took the pole vault title, adding 10cms to the Championship record held by current UK record-holder Kate Dennison.

Morpeth Harriers dominated the 5000m with Jon Taylor leading home Lewis Timmins.

Gateshead’s Emma Pringle, the 2008 Under-17 champion, finished third in the Under-20 triple jump.

Meanwhile, a good number of the region’s athletes qualified for the National Schools Combined Events Championships at Bedford in September after the regional finals at Jarrow.

Durham’s Anthony Burnell won the senior decathlon, with his county claiming a clean sweep of the medals.