NSW Claim Two National Junior Combined Event titles

13 February 2022

NSW Claim Two National Junior Combined Event titles

The 2022 Australian Junior Combined Event Championships featured an array of exciting and close battles for the podium with many NSW athletes in the mixed for medals.

Chasing his third consecutive national Combined event title, Angus Clues (BLM) had to wait until the scores were tallied for the news he had won the under-17 boys decathlon by 55 points. Victoria’s Valentino Bertucci had outrun Angus by 10 seconds in the 1500m to challenge him for the title, but Angus hung on to score 5972 points to Valentino’s 5917 points. The rain and headwinds hampered Angus’ performance on day one, but despite this his throwing results throughout the weekend were outstanding. He nailed 15.15m in the shot and 47.64m in the discus. However there was a hiccup in the high jump when he cleared just 1.50m, after jumping 1.68m in the State decathlon. In a high standard event, Kurt Rutter (DUB) was an excellent sixth scoring 5137 points, highlighted a big discus throw of 42.85m. Daniel White (UTN) was eighth scoring 4140 points.

Bankstown’s Uchenna Egbu was a comfortable winner of the boy’s under-18 decathlon scoring 5422 points. Uchenna made nice progress from his State title winning score of 5422 points. Since the State title he had made good progress in Shot (12.39m), 110m hurdles (15.66), and 1500m (4:40.37). Uchenna can certainly make more progress as he no heighted in the pole vault at the NSW and Australian events.

Illawong’s Bailey Latanis was involved in a very dramatic under-16 boys heptathlon. Going into the last event, the 1500m, he was in nineth place, but clocking a brilliant 4:25.24, to leapt into third to win the bronze medal. In addition to his 1500m, he performed well in the shot (12.31m) and 100m hurdles (15.13m).

Also in the event, Xavier Hennessey (CHE) and Michael Ajaka (PAR) placed eighth and nineth respective with scores of 3561 and 3541 points. Xavier’s performance was highlighted by strong results in the 100m hurdles (14.98) and long jump (5.60m). Michael was most impressive in the javelin, launching the implement out to 43.57m, the second best of the competition.

Bankstown’s Piper Todd was in tremendous form through the under-15 girl’s heptathlon. Despite the constant rain, she improved in every event on her State title winning performance in January. She was the third quickest in the 90m hurdles (14.14), ahead of her excellent high jump (1.51m), shot put (10.01m) and 200m (28.34). In third going into the last event, the 800m, she ran six seconds faster than her State title, but if was not sufficient to hold off Victorian Jazmin Firth, who snuck past Piper for the bronze medal. Piper tallied 4314 points.

NSW had four athletes in a quality girl’s under-16 heptathlon with 17 entries. Sarah Lovell (UTN) was the host State’s best with a score of 4098 points, placing sixth. Her performance was highlighted by a 34.73m javelin, the leading mark in the event. In seventh was Jaide Almeida (ASW) who scored 3949. She started brilliantly clocking 13.87, the leading performance in the event. Her shot put and 200m on day one were also excellent in the rain. Louise Lovell (UTN) was nineth with a score of 3826 points, highlighted by four better performances than her State title - the high jump, shot put, long jump and javelin. In tenth was Lily Stewart’s (ASW) with a score of 3785 points. Her best results being achieved in the 90m hurdles (14.47) and javelin (25.32m).

Illawong’s Helena Macarthur placed seventh in the under-17 heptathlon scoring 2985 points. Helena performance was highlighted by a 1.55m high jump in difficult conditions. In the under-15 heptathlon Teddy Hampton (CHE) scored 1726 points to place fifth, just ahead of Justin Billingsley (CHE) sixth with a score of 1484 points.

Also at the championships was an open and under-20 invitational decathlon. NSW open record holder, Alec Diamond won the open, scoring a world leading total of 7575 points. He was particularly strong in the 400m (49.48) and discus (45.08m). In second Tom Galvin (SYU) scored 6043 points, ahead of Andrew Padrana (HIL) 5355 points. In the under-20 event, Victorian Noah Oliver just missed a World U20 Championships qualifier, scoring 7008 points, with NSW’s Blake Archer second scoring 5759 points.

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW

Image: Uchenna Egbu (image courtesy of Fred Etter)