RISING Chippenham high jump star Alannah Heneghan ended her short season on another high as she won the Mark Cawte Open meeting at Swindon.

Just a week after smashing her personal best with a leap of 1.63m to go third in the UK Rankings for under-15 girls, the 13-year-old showed what a tenacious competitor she is by winning the under-15 girls’ competition.

There was no PB this time, but Heneghan showed she has what it takes to win competitions as she fought off strong opposition to win an exciting competition at the County Ground track with her final effort.

“I didn’t do so well with my first two jumps (at 1.61m) so I was under pressure to clear with my last one, which I did, so I was pleased with that,” said Heneghan.

“It was an okay competition for me.”

Considering that Heneghan, who is a student at Hardenhuish School, started the season jumping 1.45m and now ends it on 1.63m and amongst the best high jumpers of her age group in the UK, it has been a remarkable summer for all sorts of reasons.

“It has been a really good season,” added Heneghan.

“I have made quite a big improvement this season and that has been down to a lot of hard work over the winter, and then during lockdown I used a gym we have in our garage. It all helped.”

Di Viles, her coach at Team Bath AC, is also working hard on the technical aspects of the event and will be looking to build upon this season’s success for next year when hopefully the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic will be behind us and the sport can enjoy a more normal summer.

“I have another year as an under-15 athlete, so I am very excited about 2021,” added Heneghan.

In his first serious race of the summer, Chippenham Harriers’ Henri Cotineau smashed his personal best over 1500m at the Mark Cawte meeting.

Racing in heat two, Cotineau, whose previous best was 4mins 43.56secs set last year, clocked 4:35.27 for an impressive victory. Older brother Luc was fifth in 4:48.84, also a big PB by over 10 seconds.

Calne sprinter Joe Carter was runner-up in heat one of the 200m in 23.65secs.

Fellow Chippenham athletes Owen Merrett and James Viner were at Moulton for the England Throws Camp Invitational Throws Series, but didn’t have a happy day in the hammer throwing circle.

Competing in the under-17 men’s event, the pair failed to register a throw and afterwards said they had problems with the circle.

“I know there were both going for it and James wanted to throw 60 metres and Owen wanted 70 metres,” said their coach Matt Spicer.

“Neither would have been happy with anything else so all in all, not disappointed. We have to take a month off now as our circles (at Yate & District AC) are being replaced.

“We go again in November when Owen’s focus will be the 2021 European Under 18 Championships in Italy.”

Owen’s younger brother Adam finished fifth in the hammer 4k event with a throw of 19.49m.