Silver lining for hammer ace

Despite continuing hamstring problems, the Parkwood sixth form student pulled out a personal best throw of 59.03m in the senior women’s hammer at the weekend.

That put her just 72 centimetres behind Abbi Carter, the top British under-20 hammer thrower from Kingston who decided that she would use these championships as a warm-up for the World Junior Championships.

James was overlooked for the World Junior Championships despite meeting the selection criteria, and winning the World Youth Championships and Commonwealth Youth Games titles last year.

Her Hastings Athletic Club team-mate Grace Baker (Rye College) repeated her performance from last year by winning a bronze medal in the intermediate girls’ 3,000m.

Baker’s time of 10.03.54 was some 17 seconds outside her personal best and she was easing up in the home straight only to have Abbie Donnelly (Lincolnshire) attack before putting in a final effort to grab the medal by just over a tenth of a second.

Katie Garland (Bexhill High School) came close to a medal in the intermediate girls’ high jump, going out at 1.65m having cleared 1.62m. Garland looked to have cleared with her second jump only for the bar to come down, resulting in her finishing sixth overall.