28th January 2018

MILLS THIRD AT INDOOR COMBINED EVENTS INTERNATIONAL

There was success for the British team as Holly Mills (coach: James Coney) captured a podium place in the U20 women’s pentathlon at the International Combined Events International match in Madrid.

Several athletes donning the British vest achieved top ten placings in the contest that saw the British Athletics team take on multi-eventers from France, Spain, Czech Republic and Poland.

Mills – a European youth long jump champion from 2016 – returned to her combined event roots in the Spanish capital, and it was another successful foray, after she posted a personal best earlier this month in Sheffield. She narrowly missed out on further improving that on this occasion, but delivered a wonderful display to grab third place overall. Personal bests came in the 60m hurdles (8.50), high jump (1.73m) and 800m (2:24.18) for a total of 4022 points.

In the same age category, Oxford City’s Jade O’Dowda (Marcia Marriott) placed fourth overall, a great performance, adding three points to her previous best tally, with Commonwealth Games-bound Holly McArthur (Iain McEwan) in sixth as the team finished second behind Poland. They saw Adrianna Sutek take the gold.

The U20 men fared well Nicolas Gerome (Cyrille le Nader) and Joel McFarlane (Ian McFarlane) placing fifth (5056 points) and sixth (4968 points) respectively in the heptathlon competition.

In the senior women’s contest, Jo Rowland (Toni Minichiello) moved to eighth on the UK indoor all-time list in the indoor pentathlon with a points tally of 4291. Winning the 800m in 2:12.62, she placed fifth overall in an entertaining contest won by Czech Republic’s Eliska Klucinova.

In the senior men’s two-day heptathlon, Andrew Murphy (Colin Sinclair) was the first-placed Briton in 11th place. The Kilbarchan athlete added 90 points to his previous best by tallying 5492 overall. Lifetime bests in the 60m (7.21), 60m hurdles (8.39) and 1000m (2:46.00) saw him improve upon his last outing; a third place at the trial event in Sheffield.

Full results can be found here.