Two golds and a silver as hurdlers impress at British Athletics Championships

06 July 2015

Jack Houghton, pictured, claimed a confidence-boosting 400m hurdles silver medal when University of Bath-based athletes competed at the British Championships in Birmingham over the weekend.

The Biology student, coached by Colin Bovell at the Sports Training Village, finished runner-up to defending champion Niall Flannery in 50.60 but was ahead of former World Champion Dai Greene.

“It was a really strong performance by Jack,” said Bovell. “He just missed out qualifying for the European U23 Championships by 0.2 of a second but he has kept plugging away and that result will make him feel much better about himself.”

Jacob Paul, who studies Sport & Social Sciences, was fourth in 51.12 and Matt Sumner, also coached by Bovell, took seventh place in 51.95.

The women’s 400m hurdles title was won by European Champion Eilidh Child, coached by Malcolm Arnold, as her time of 55.57 put her more than a second clear of the field.

Training partner Lawrence Clarke equaled his season’s best of 13.53 while winning his 110m hurdles heat on Sunday.

And he was only two-hundredths of a second off that pace in the final, taking gold ahead of Sports Performance graduate Joseph Hylton.

Current student David King was fourth in 13.94, just three-hundredths behind Hylton and third-placed Jake Porter.

University of Bath graduate Danny Talbot was unable to retain his 200m title, having to settle for silver behind Zharnel Hughes.

Lucy Bryan, making only her second appearance of the season after injury, was an impressive runner-up to Holly Bradshaw after clearing 4.20m in the pole vault.

Jazmin Sawyers finished narrowly outside the medal positions in the long jump, leaping 6.51m for fourth place.

Accounting & Finance graduate Rosie Clarke, who now trains and competes in the United States, was fifth in the 1,500m in 4:18.20.

And former Psychology student John Bird clocked 1:53.05 for seventh place in the 800m final.

It was a difficult weekend for Laura Maddox, who was runner-up in her 400m heat but could only finish seventh in the final in 56.04 – her slowest time of the season.

“We’ll have to dissect what went wrong in the final but she has suffered from injury and illness in the past few weeks, so her build-up has been disrupted,” said coach Bovell.

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