Three BAC athletes become Beds schools county champions!
Three of BAC’s junior athletes – Henry Knox, Sureyya Akay and Koye Sule − won gold medals at the 2024 Bedfordshire Schools County Athletics Championships held at the Bedford International Athletic Stadium on Wednesday June 12. A fourth club member, Sidney Hammond, finished a highly-creditable third in his main event and second in another.
Henry was first up, producing an incredible sprint down the finishing straight to claim the intermediate boys (Year 10) 800m title and gold medal in a time of 2.11. Coming off the final bend he was 25m behind two boys battling it out for the lead but found an extra gear from somewhere to storm past both just a metre from the finishing line.
Sureyya’s evening in the junior girls (Year 9) competition started with a disappointment when injury and fitness issues resulted in her only finishing fourth in her main 200m event. Then another athlete dropped out of the 300m race scheduled shortly afterwards and with nothing to lose she agreed to step in as a replacement – and won that title and a gold medal in a time of 46.3! Sureyya rounded off a busy evening by helping the mid-Beds team finish third in the intra-district 4x100m relay.
Koye became the third BAC athlete to win a gold with a powerful run to claim the intermediate boys 400m title in a time of 53.6. Running in lane three, he went out hard from the start, blasted past the four runners on his outside down the back straight and then dug in deep down the home straight to hold off his nearest challenger just inside him in lane two and win by a metre.
Sidney set out to try and lead the junior boys (Year 9) 800m from start to finish but found two other competitors a bit stronger on the day and had to settle for a very respectable third place in what was an extremely fast-run race. Immediately afterwards, he took part in the junior boys high jump competition and got second place with a jump of 1.40m in an event which is still fairly new to him.
All four BAC athletes had qualified for the schools county championships by winning schools district titles the previous week so a huge ‘well done’ to all of you on your tremendous successes this month!