Highland Fling Has a Silver Reward
David Feeney has made a successful border raid - coming back with an under-17 silver medal from the Scottish Indoor Combined Events Championships at Glasgow's Kelvin Hall.
The Scots-born Belper teenager completed five events inside a day in the pentathlon to land his medal.
And it could have been better, as a slight ankle strain caused him to err on the side of caution in his strongest event, the high jump.
Feeney's mother Julie, a coach at his club, Amber Valley AC, said: "High jump was the first event of the day and he was feeling a slight strain in to his take-off leg, so he decided not to take further jumps after clearing 1.71m."
That meant Feeney was fourth in the high jump but he soon improved his position to second overall with a solid 80m hurdles that left him about 100 points behind the leader, John Sinclair.
The points difference remained similar after the shot putt but Feeney clawed some points back by winning the long jump with a personal best 5.89m.
The event closed with the rarely-run 1000m, not Feeney's strongest, but he was able to hold on to the silver medal position by then.
Feeney finished 141 points behind Sinclair but was happy with his final total of 2,947 points, which was only 53 short of his early-season target of 3,000.
His attention will turn now to the North of England Indoor Pentathlon in a fortnight.
A couple of years ago, high jump was very much the Belper School student 16-year-old's focus.
But in the last outdoor season he found hurdling came naturally and now multi-events seerms a natural progression.
"To win a medal in these championships was one of his indoor aims and, if we're lucky, it might bring him to the attention of the national squad selectors," said Mrs Feeney.
"We think multi-events is where his strength seems to be going and this is how we are taking the training now, rather than concentrating on only one or two events."
Eleanor Stevens produced the outstanding performance among local athletes at the North of England Indoor Track and Field Championships last week.
In her first official outing as a senior, 19-year-old Stevens came second in the 1500m in a time of 4.37.46.
The Derby AC runner took the race on from the start but was eventually caught by Wakefield's Helen Singleton in the last 100 metres.
"It was a really encouraging performance, since she has not been doing any speed work and is still on reduced training," said her coach John Simmons.
At the same event, Derby AC sprinter Adam Draycott reached the semi-final of the 200m, coming fourth in 23.14 seconds.
Reproduced with Kind Permission from Derby Evening Telegraph - Colston Crawford - 06 February 2004