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Welsh Senior Under-17 and Para Track and Field Championships - Day 1 Round-Up
28/06/2025 00:00, In Blog /
The first day of the Welsh Senior Under-17 and Para Track and Field Championships produced a thrilling day of high quality athletics littered with outstanding performances.
With almost 800 athletes taking part, the championship attracted its biggest entry for 10 years – bolstered by incorporating the Great Britian team trials for the European Under-23 Championships in Norway later this summer.
Cardiff’s International Sports Campus witnessed all comers records, championship bests and personal bests, while a number of athletes booked automatic places on the plane to Bergen.
Among the first to secure their place in the GB team for the European Under-23 Championships was non-Welsh middle distance star Ava Lloyd (Wigan and District Harriers AC) who won the senior women’s open 1500m final in 4:28.24.
The top Welsh finisher was Darcie Bass (Swansea Harriers) who took the national title with 4:36.27.
Among the proudest Welsh champions on the day was one of our many 2026 Commonwealth Games hopefuls taking part – Freya Jones (Harrow AC).
The former England javelin international, who competed at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, was delighted to win her first title in the land of her father since qualifying to represent Wales last year.
Jones, who has improved the Welsh record a number of times since switching allegiance, won the national senior/under-23 title with a best of 49.51m achieved in a difficult wind.
Commenting on her first Welsh title, a delighted Jones, who hopes to return to Glasgow wearing the red of Wales next year, said afterwards: “I haven't been to Leckwith in a really long time, so it's nice to be back. My dad, who is Welsh, actually brought me up today and my Welsh cousins are here. So it’s nice to have family around.
“I spent a lot of time in Cardiff during my youth, and obviously turning Welsh two years ago, it's been really good to be able to make my mark this year.”
On her performance, Jones said: “The conditions weren't favourable to us today, it's really windy here, so I don't think any of us girls were really excited with how far we threw, but I'm heading out to Oslo on Monday. I've got a World continental tour competition and I’m really excited to get back into the swing of things, and then shutting it down before British champs at the beginning of August.”
Two sprinters, who have represented Wales at previous Commonwealths, enjoyed a successful Saturday by booking their places in finals on Sunday.
Caryl Granville-Moore (Swansea Harriers) sealed her place in in the senior/under-23 400m final in a time of 60.82. Meanwhile, clubmate Hannah Brier (Swansea Harriers) went through to the 400m final in 53.01.
One of Wales’ top para athletes Olivia Breen (City of Portsmouth) was in excellent form in the male and female ambulant para long jump.
Breen, who won 100m gold at the last Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, jumped a season’s best 4.75m to win the women’s competition.
Elsewhere, it was a day of records all round as a number of non-Welsh sprinters, including Nia Wedderburn-Goodison (Harrow) and Faith Akinbileje (Blackheath and Bromley Harriers) smashed the 100m all-comers record of 11.27 set by Heather Oakes in 1984. Wedderburn Goodison clocking 11.16 in the semi-finals. Renee Regis. Renee Regis (Shaftsbury Barnet Harries) won the open final in 11.35.
The Welsh senior women/under-23 title went to Issie Tustin (Cardiff Athletics) who won in a PB of 11.81.
There were also a number of scorching times in the men’s senior/under-23 100m where under-23 athlete Alex Azu (Cardiff Athletics) ran a new PB of 10.40 in the heats and Sam Gordon (Cardiff Athletics) notched a season’s best 10.41.
In the final, Gordon took the Welsh title by finishing third in the open race in 10.42. Unfortunately Azu didn’t finish.
The Leckwith track certainly seemed to suit the sprinters. In the under-17s competitions, Josh Hirst (St Albans AC) produced a brilliant run in the men’s 400m final to break the championship best record.
Hirst claimed gold in a new PB of 48.70, which eclipsed the championship best of 48.82 set by Mark Ponting way back in 1993.
There was another championship best in the under-17 women’s 100m where brilliant young Welsh Athletics National Development Programme prospect Aliyah Afolabi (Cardiff Archers) blasted her way to 11.69 to win her heat and improve fellow Cardiff Archer Nell Desir’s championship best of 11.77 set in 2022.
And Afolabi went even faster in the final as she improved her championship best with a time of 11.68, just outside Hannah Brier’s Welsh age group record. Fellow NDP sprinters Ava Lexi-Placide and Tianna Odugbesan were second and third respectively in PBs of 12.30 and 12.39.
The under-17 men’s under-17 100m heats produced a clutch of personal bests with Oliver Shearer (Cardiff Athletics) leading the way with 11.10. The thrilling final saw NDP athlete Kaleem Islam (Cardiff Athletics) take gold in 11.34 by 0.01 second from Shearer.
The first track final of the day was won by Roxy McHugh (Sale Harriers Manchester) who claimed the under-17 women’s 300m title in a hand timed 44.1 – her fastest ever.
One of the first field champions was Emily Thomas (Cardiff Archers) who took the Welsh title in the senior/under-23 women’s long jump with a season’s best 6.14m. The next best Welsh athlete was Amy Hughes (Cardiff Archers) with a personal best of 6.09m. The overall winner was Ruby Jerges (Harrow) with a PB of 6.28m.
In the throws, Harry Weintraub (Welsh Anglo Athletes) took the first title of the day with a throw of 63.38m to win gold in the men’s hammer. The under-17 men’s hammer title went to Gethin Brown (Deeside AAC) with 50.66m.
Multiple British championship medallist Patrick Swan (Cornwall AC) added another Welsh title to his collection in the senior men’s shot put with a best of 17.46m.
Swan also received the Shaun Pickering Award, in memory of the late Welsh throwing legend, which was presented by his sister Kim Pickering.
The under-17 men’s title went to NDP thrower Lachlan Robbie (Cardiff Archers) with an excellent PB of 16.57m
Outstanding young NDP prospect Darcy Coslett (Llanelli AAC) added the under-17 women’s 300m title to the under-20 women’s 400m title she won in Swansea recently.
Coslett posted a season’s best 38.41 finishing ahead of Evan Rae Hanniford (Cardiff Archers) in a PB of 41.30 and Sophie Steele (Newport Harriers) with 42.33.
In a high quality men’s under-17 long jump, NDP athlete Aidan Angilletta (Deeside AAC) claimed gold with a new PB of 6.19m, ahead of fellow NDP athletes Macsen Martin Hughes (Cardiff Archers), who also celebrated a PB of 6.10m and Kaleem Islam (Cardiff Athletics), who enjoyed a season’s best of 6.05m.
Multi-eventer Angilletta went on to win the under-17 high jump with 1.75m.
There was a thrilling finish to the men’s senior/under-23 5,000m final where Lloyd Sheppard-Brown (Cardiff Athletics) boldly took on a high quality field including a clutch of athletes vying for under-23 qualifying as he led for most of the race.
But in the closing stages, pre-race favourite Will Barnicoat (Aldershot Farnham & District) came through to claim the open title, while Ben Reynolds (Cardiff Athletics) celebrated the Welsh title in 14:37.42. Sheppard-Brown claimed joint silver in 14:40.26 with Sam Roberts (Retford).
There was a successful day for the Evans family from Carmarthen Harriers. Summer Evans won the under-17 women’s javelin with 35.62m, while big sister Storm Evans won the senior/under-23 Welsh discus title with a best of 44.94m.
In a busy para programme, there was an extremely tight finish to the men’s para 100m where Welsh Athletics Transition Programme athlete and Commonwealth Games competitor James Ledger (Swansea Harriers) and British Athletics Paralympic Confirmation Level sprinter John Bridge (Cardiff Athletics) could barely be separated.
But it was Ledger who took the win in a season’s best 11.84, with Bridge also claiming a season’s best of 11.94.
Wales’ two outstanding young NDP wheelchair athletes, Toby Richardson (Yate and District AC) and Owain Terrell (Newport Harriers) went head to head in two races over 1500 and 100m.
Under-17 athlete Richardson took the honours over the longer distance claiming victory in 3:58.34, with under-23 man Terrell clocking 4:04.19.
Richardson also crossed the line first in the 100m where he clocked 17.35, ahead of Terrell’s 18.36.
Sunday’s action starts at 10.30 on Sunday with the men’s and women’s 10K walk.