Princethorpe help Warwickshire to seventh in Schools’ National Athletics Championships

PICTURED: (from left) Anjola Okusanya, Ben Smith, Vincent McNevin and André Onyekwe

Four Princethorpe pupils represented Warwickshire in the English Schools’ Athletics Association Combined Events Championships at Bedford International Athletic Stadium last weekend. The boys had qualified for the event back in June and were the only County team participating with all the athletes from the same school.

Year 10 pupils, Anjola Okusanya, Vincent McNevin and Ben Smith and Year 9, André Onyekwe, competed in the Junior Boys Pentathlon that included five different events – the 80m Hurdles, Shot, Long Jump, High Jump and 800m.

The team finished in a very respectable seventh place overall against competitors from 18 County teams. On the day the boys all ran personal bests in the 800m, a superb achievement, and Vincent delivered personal bests in every event.

Their individual finishes were:

André Onyekwe 20th, Vincent McNevin 24th, Ben Smith 28th, Anjola Okusanya 36th

Director of Sport, Lee Cassell, said: “It was a fantastic effort from the boys, they did brilliantly. They have been training hard with limited opportunities to compete. They faced the best athletes from across the country and really rose to the challenge. It was an impressive performance from them all, and they are already looking forward to the athletics season next year.”

Congratulations to them all but especially to Ben who discovered subsequent to the event that he had competed all day with a broken metatarsal but still managed to deliver his best.