Glenlola final year pupil Sarah Connolly made huge improvements at the weekend when finishing second in the Somerset Combined Events Championships in Millfield School. Sarah set no less than 4 event personal bests on the way to adding a massive 453 points to her highest score to date.
Her total score of 4463 also beat the North Down senior record of 4118, set by Andrea Ramage in the 1990’s. The record books now need to be checked as this score could well be a Northern Ireland U20 record, but this is yet to be confirmed.
Competing in the Senior Women age group, Sarah won her first event, the 100m Hurdles in a new PB of 14.71s, this was well inside her club record of 15.08s, unfortunately this won’t count as it was slightly over the legal wind limit allowed for individual events. Sarah dropped out of the lead with a disappointing high jump of 1.51m, some 14cm down on her best. The disappointment didn’t last long as Sarah put the shot an outdoor best of 8.68m before taking almost a full second off her 200m PB with 26.04s.
Sarah began a chilly day two jumping a very credible 5.35m in the long jump; she then had her two biggest improvements in the final two events. Her 29.60m in the Javelin was 7 metres further than her previous best, this was followed by a gutsy run in her least favoured event, the 800m, running 2.38.69 which took 4 seconds off her PB set in 2013.
Sarah has now put herself in with a chance for selection onto the Irish Senior Team for the European Cup of Combined Events taking place in Poland in July.