English Schools Championships in Birmingham
Blake Gates, recently travelled to Birmingham and competed in a British Athletics competition on 29th June. It was a lot of new experiences for him and he had to travel and stay at a hotel with the team. Although his parents were there they were not with him at all except for a brief moment after his event. Blake, for his first ever major national competition, managed to finish 12th in England in the discus competition.
Blake wasn’t overly happy with his performance and was gutted to not have thrown closer to his personal best. It did seem quite a few also struggled with this level of competition but Blake has still been able to maintain his top 10 UK ranked athlete status and is currently ranked 8th in the UK.
He has taken this competition as a learning experience ready to go back to Birmingham in the end of August for the England Athletics Track and Field Championships. His parents are both very proud of Blake as he represents them, his club, the school and the team with perfect behaviour. He also tried his best under new circumstances with a huge audience and it being live-streamed and came away 12th. 1st at the county level, 3rd at the intercounty level and 12th nationally. We are very proud of Blake and have high hopes for him at the South of England Championships and the England Athletics Championships in August.
