September 2: Ayesha Jones and D’mitri Varlack win at the UK School Games in Loughborough
The UK School Games in Loughborough is a competition between eight regionally-based teams that selects its team from the athletes in its region. While the names of the teams (from the venues for the last eight venues for the Commonwealth Games) don’t reflect where the athletes are based, the competition is fierce.
Four Marshall Milton Keynes athletes were selected:
- D’mitri Varlack for Birmingham
- Hayley Dimond for Manchester
- Daniel Ayodele for Delhi
- Ayesha Jones for Delhi
Unfortunately Daniel was unable to take part in the triple jump on the day, but the other three were in action, with D’mitri and Ayesha, both England Athletics Champions from the previous weekend, winning again at Loughborough.
For Ayesha Jones, as a first year under 17, this was a season where she was undefeated nationally in the Javelin. For D’mitri, again in his first year as an under 17, his only defeat in the Long Jump this year, was in the Home Schools’ International in Belfast. This was despite managing injuries for most of the summer. For Heptathlete, Hayley Dimond, this was the end of a long season in which she excelled at a number of events, with high rankings in the 80mH and Shot.
- Long Jump: 1 D’mitri Varlack 6.82m (w+1.4)
- Shot: 7 Hayley Dimond 12.25m
- Javelin: 1 Ayesha Jones 47.37m