For the third consecutive year, the Blackheath & Bromley Harriers AC U20 team had the honour of representing GB at the European Athletics U20 “Clash of the Clubs” DNA championships.

A strong team of 24 athletes made its way through the wall of traffic in South London to Gatwick for a flight to Portugal where a long series of delays saw a tired and hungry team arrive at its hotel in Pombal shortly before midnight slightly outside the scheduled arrival of 5 pm. Fortunately, we were not due to compete until late the following afternoon so there was ample opportunity to rest and recover.

The DNA format of competition has some attractive features. At no stage is there more than one track or field competition taking place at the same time. This gives a focus on the athletes competing which, in the case of the field events, is welcome as they can often be lost in the background to the events taking place on the track. On the other hand, there are novel elements to the field events that are a distraction from the pure competitive nature of the sport and can unfortunately lead to athletes being rewarded for jumping or throwing safely rather than trying to beat their personal bests. Nevertheless, our field athletes on Day 1 of the competition did superbly well with Abraham Sharif scoring maximum points for the team in the Long Jump while Jessie Sargeant (High Jump), Max Kennedy (Javelin) and Joyce Nzekwe (SP) all scoring well for the club.

Day 1 on the track was also very strong. The 4 x 400 relay team of Oliver Driscoll, Alyssa Firla, Amber Bloomfield and Ryen Rennie ran for a season’s best and 2nd place behind a very strong Spanish team. The sprint hurdles were dominated by Jodie Self (ranked 5th in the UK) and Daniel Goriola (ranked number 1 in the UK) who both won their heats. Niamh Stanley ran to a commendable 4th in the 800 despite, at the age of 16, being one of the youngest competitors in the competition. Rayhan Mourtada continued our dominance in the hurdling events by winning the 400mH in a personal best that also vaulted him to 4th in the UK rankings. Honey Chalmers ran a remarkable PB to place 3rd in the 100m while Jack N’Douba put in an incredible performance only to be pipped to 2nd place in the 200m.

These amazing performances put the club in 1st place at the end of the regular competition with only the Hunt relay to go to secure a place in the A final for Day 2. A strong performance in the opening leg of the 600 by Cameron Kelly Gordon, followed by a powerful 400 leg by Zuriel Nwogwugwu, a very fast 200 by Sienna Kidd and a controlled 800 closing leg by Mark Constable saw the team safely through Day 1.

The competition on Day 2 in the final was always going to be a step up. The top 3 teams from Match 1 and Match 2 of Day 1 were going to be competing for the title of European Champion.

Despite running a slightly faster time, our 4 x 400 relay team of Oliver Driscoll, Alyssa Firla, Leah Kyriakou and Ryen Rennie were pipped into 3rd place in the opening event. Jodie Self and Daniel Goriola once again won their sprint hurdle events (remarkably ending their DNA careers undefeated across 3 years for Jodie and 2 years for Daniel). Hannah Clark taking over from Niamh who ran on Day 1, bravely led out the 800m only to be caught in the last 250m of a very hotly contested race and being pushed back to 5th place. Rayhan Mourtada clipped a couple of the closing hurdles in pushing for another PB but still managed to finish in a strong 3rd place in the 400mH. Honey Chalmers improved her PB and maintained another 3rd place finish in the 100m while Jack N’Douba ran a more controlled race and came within a hair of catching 2nd place on the line to finish 3rd in the 200.

Out in the field, Abraham and his Spanish competitor, despite being the only 7m + jumpers in the competition found themselves competing for 3rd place because of the peculiarity of the DNA format of competition. Jessie Sargeant beat enough of her competitors to come a solid third in the HJ while our throwers (Max Kennedy and Joyce Nzekwe) overcame niggles to score very well in their competitions.

Completing the regular competitions and going into the Hunt, Blackheath & Bromley were in a solid 2nd place:

Once again, the final standings were to be decided by the “winner take all” Hunt relay. Each point that a team had as an advantage translated to a .3 of a second head start. So Sparta started its first 600m leg with a 6 second advantage over us while we started with a 3.3 second advantage over the Czech and Portuguese teams.

Despite running a tremendous time, our team of Cameron Kelly Gordon (600), Zuriel Nwogwugwu (400), Sienna Kidd (200) and Harry Fage (800) just missed holding on to a podium position.

Nevertheless, those who follow the team on social media will have seen the celebrations held by our athletes. 4th place in Europe is an achievement of which we can be proud and as a team, we hope that we represented the 100+ athletes and their coaches who helped us win the national title – three quarters of whom didn’t have their events represented in the competition format – with performances of which they would be proud.