14th August 2018

AGE GROUP WORLD AND EUROPEAN MEDALLISTS HEAD BRITISH U20 TEAM AT MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL

A 46-strong Great Britain and Northern Ireland Under-20 team, featuring some of the country’s brightest talents, will compete at the third edition of the Manchester International on Wednesday (15 August).

The British team, which includes medallists from last month’s World U20 Championships and European U18 Championships, will take on senior teams from each of the home nations, a combined British Athletics League/UK Women’s League team, and countries from abroad, including Iceland.

Heading the British team will be World U20 Championship gold medallist Jake Norris (coach: Paul Dickenson, club: Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow), who is no stranger to international competition having won gold in the men’s hammer at last month’s World U20 Championships.

Norris threw a British junior record of 80.65m to win gold in Tampere, Finland, and Wednesday’s competition will see him test himself against senior competition, including Scotland’s Chris Bennett (Michael Jones, Shaftesbury Barnet/Shettleston), one of six athletes to represent GB & NI at the European Championships in Berlin.

Fellow U20 medallists from Finland Kristal Awuah (Matthew Thomas, Herne Hill Harriers) and Vera Chinedu (Ryan Freckleton, Cambridge) will both be in action on Wednesday. Awuah and Chinedu were part of the women’s 4x100m relay team that won bronze.

The latter will headline the relay team in Manchester, while European U20 leader Awuah will focus solely on the 100m, where she claimed bronze in Tampere.

U18 world leaders Max Burgin (Brian Burgin, Halifax) and Dominic Ogbechie (Marius Guei / Carol Jackson, Highgate Harriers) will both compete in Manchester following gold medals at the European U18 Championships in the 800m and high jump respectively.

Ogbechie, who is three centimetre shy of breaking Steve Smith’s British U18 record of 2.25m, will go up against Scotland’s Allan Smith (Bryan Roy, Shaftesbury Barnet), who missed out on a spot in the finals of the European Championships on countback.

Sophie McKinna (Mike Winch, Great Yarmouth) and Jade Lally (Zane Duquemin, Shaftesbury Barney) will represent England in shot put as will in the women’s discus. Scotland’s Kirsty Law (Zane Duquemin, Sale Harriers) will also compete in the discus having just returned from Berlin, while Heather Cubbage (Andrew Neal, City of Portsmouth) will compete for Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s Under-20 team.

European Championships semi-finalist Kirsten McAslan (Michael Baker, Sale Harriers) will compete for Scotland against European U18 finalist Natasha Harrison (Pete Torrance, Stockport), who represents the British Under-20 team.

Sprinters Kaie Chambers-Brown (Sharon Morris, Birchfield Harries) and Shemar Boldizsar (Vincent Lawrence, Harlow AC) both head to Manchester in fine form in the 100m and 200m respectively.

Chambers-Brown equalled his personal best with a 10.34 (0.1 m/s) winning run in Belgium earlier this month, while Boldizsar has set new personal bests over 200m both indoors and outdoors this year. English Schools champion Kiah Dubarry-Gay (Alf Vickers, Victoria Park & Tower Hamlets) will compete in the women’s 200m.

Elsewhere on the track, silver medallist from last year’s Commonwealth Youth Games, Seamus Derbyshire (Derek Yeomans, City of Stoke) will compete in the 400m hurdles, while Chris Snook (Verity Snook, Aldershot, Farnham & District) will take to the start line in the men’s 3000m race walk having just missed out on a medal over 5000m at the British Championships.

2016 European U18 800m champion Isabelle Boffey (Douglas Stone, Enfield & Haringey) and 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games 1500m champion Erin Wallace (Dudley Walker, Giffnock North) and Jasmine Jolly (400m Hurdles, Peter Crook, Preston) will all compete on the track having represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the World U20 Championships last month.

In the field, British Under 18 discus record holder James Tomlinson (Paul Jensen, Pembrokeshire) will step into the circle for the first time since returning from the World U20 Championships, facing off against Wales’ four-time British discus champion Brett Morse.

European U18 finalists Lewis Byng (Paul Bearman, Stratford-upon-Avon) and Hannah Molyneaux (Malcolm Fenton, Sheffield & Dearne) will represent Great Britain in the shot put. Felicia Miloro (Maxine Robbins, Sutton-in-Ashfield) will be one-to-watch in the women’s pole vault after adding 10cm onto her PB this year, extending it to 3.93m.

Josie Oliarnyk (Dominic McNeillis, Halesowen) will take to the runway in the long jump having set a personal best en-route to a seventh-place finish at July’s British Championships.