07 March 2009

With events in Turin set to dominate athletic headlines this weekend, some of the best of Europe’s young multi events athletes were meeting in Cardiff for a tri-nation Combined Events international featuring Spain, France and hosts Great Britain.

While Mo Farah was clinching gold, and Tahri and Espana of France and Spain respectively taking silver and bronze in another battle between the three nations in Turin, the personal bests were falling piece by piece in the Welsh capital; the most notable coming from Francis Baker (UWIC) on his home track, 7.32m in the U23 long jump event was more than enough to tear apart his previous best. Baker was clearly shocked and pleased by the clearance, springing out the sand in celebration. Baker was clearly enjoying the competitive action so far, he was also fastest Great Britain representative in the 60m earlier in the day, with a time of 7.17secs

Great Britain had the top three fastest runners in the U20 60m heats, with Daniel Gardiner (Leeds City AC) 7.07secs, David Guest (Bridgend AC), 7.25secs and Ben Reynolds (North Down AC), 7.24secs all demonstrating their sprinting abilities.

Consistent performances help guide Gardiner to 2nd place on day one of the U20 competition, with a combined point score of 3,125.  Another top placing in the long jump, 7.17m, a second place in the shot put, 14.39m and a final clearance of 1.84m in the high jump.

This further inspired Great Britain’s 1st place team position after 4 events, David Guest’s point score of 3,035, Reynolds, 2,861pts and Gregory, 2,856pts contributing to a strong position going into day 2.

Baker again proved that he had the bug for rewriting history, confiding another lifetime best to the scrapheap, he cleared a height of 2.02m in the high jump competition, winning that event. This saw Baker finish day 1 in second place with a score of 3,144pts.

With the women to compete tomorrow, they will be hopeful of replicating the example made by the men today, with more personal bests and more rewriting history.