A golden weekend for North athletes

Jan 18 2010 by Les Venmore, The Journal

NORTH East athletes gained nine gold medals at this weekend’s Northern Athletics Indoor Championships at Sheffield.

Gateshead’s Richard Kilty easily won the 200m while Morpeth’s Jon Taylor retained his 3000m title, taking 2.89secs off his own Championship record, with Elswick’s Philip Hurst impressive in second position.

Ade Babatunde of Middlesbrough took gold in the triple jump and Emma Raven of Chester-le-Street, champion in 2008, regained the 3000m title.

Middlesbrough’s Rachel Highfield won the Under-15 Girls’ 200m, after finishing second in the 60m 24 hours earlier.

Blaydon’s Josh Philipson improved his personal best height by 4cms to win the Under-15 high jump, defeating Middlesbrough’s Patrick O’Connor on countback.

On Saturday, English Schools silver medallist Ashleigh Wood, from Gateshead, bettered her previous figures by 0.28secs to win the Under-20 60m hurdles.

Gateshead’s Jonny Wilkinson improved his own personal best by 0.25secs, to win the Under-15 80m Hurdles.

More success came in the hurdles with Mia Hodgson of Chester-le-Street winning the Under-15 title with her third personal best of the afternoon, having improved her previous figures of 9.76secs in the heat and semi-final.

Meanwhile, World heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis continued her brilliant start to the indoor season with two more personal bests in Sheffield.

Ennis, competing in her home city, won the 60 metres in a championship record time of 7.36 seconds on Saturday.

Then the 23-year-old, tuning up for the World Indoor Championships pentathlon in Doha in March, extended her shot put best by 16 centimetres to 13.83 metres.

Those milestone achievements came only a week after last summer’s Berlin gold medallist had a stellar outing at the Loughborough University meeting.

Showing magnificent form there she posted her quickest ever 60m hurdles time of 8.12sec, a best ever long jump of 6.39m and threw the shot 13.67m – which was her best until Saturday’s effort.

Ennis returned to the stadium to conclude her two days of action clearing an excellent high jump height of 1.89m before raising the bar to 1.96m. Ennis would have erased Debbie Marti’s UK record, but she narrowly failed to clear.

“She decided to have a pop at it but it didn’t come off,” said her coach Toni Minichiello, who rebuilt her career after a stress fracture in her right leg saw her miss the 2008 Olympic Games.

Meanwhile, Minichiello revealed Ennis will open her outdoor season in Gotzis at the end of May.