Ash Jumps to it for first GB Vest

Sunday saw 17 year old Scunthorpe student Ashley WREN win his first GB vest when he headed down the M1 to Loughborough University for the annual fixture which saw Loughborough Universities past and present students take on representative teams from England, Scotland, Wales, British Universities & Colleges (BUCS) select and Great Britain Juniors.

Ash’s outstanding early season form which has seen him add nearly 50cm to his best in the long jump with 7.35cm ranks him second in the UK amongst the under 20 athletes. This was enough to earn him a call up to the Great Britain Junior team for the first international fixture of the track and field calendar. 

It was also a day for Ash to rub shoulders with many stars of the Great Britain senior team with Jess Ennis, Mark Lewis-Francis, Perri Shakes Drayton, Dai Greene topping the bill. It was also a day to impress Charles van Commenee the head coach of UK Athletics, who was stood, running his eye over the action in the Loughborough no doubt looking for the stars of tomorrow.

The day started with Ashley having to report early to Loughborough to be kitted out with his GB vest. Much to his surprise this came in the form of a suitcase containing tracksuits, vest, shorts, joggers, t-shirt, baseball cap, rucksack and much more.

With Ash’s event not starting to nearly the end of the timetable this gave Ash, his coach Neil Bones and a small army of his supporters chance to take in some of the other action. The event saw a crowd of nearly 1,000 athletic fans Including sporting heroes from the past such as Linford Christie and Geoff Capes gathering on the grassy banks around the athletics track which will be the home of the GB team before the 2012 Olympics..The only disappointing factor was the very strong winds that were swirling around the track giving a back wind one minute then a head wind the next.

It was 4.30pm when Ash and his supporters headed to the Long Jump pit in front of the main stand to watch Ash pull on his GB vest for the first time. With Ash been the youngest competitor and with many of his senior competitors having bests near to 8 metres and there been a crowd of nearly 200 gathered around the pit and the overlooking balcony Ash could be forgiven been phased by the experience. But he appeared in his new tracksuit looking calm and confident. After a slightly under power jump of 6.75m Ash soon got into his stride with a second round effort of 7.15m, before he suffered three no jumps with minor fouls over the take off board which looked to be in the region of 7.30m. It was to be a day of no jumps with the swirling wind making it hard for all the competitors to judge their run ups. However Ash re composed himself for his final round effort and set his best jump of the day of 7.17m. This put him in 9^th place but with only 60cm covering the first 9 places this was no disgrace. The bonus for Ashley was to then lay next to Jessica Ennis on the Physio tables when he went for his post event massage.

Ashley will now be hoping this will be the first of many GB vests especially has he has only just moved up to the Under 20’s age group and will still be eligible as an under 20 next year. His immediate target however will be the 7.45m qualifying mark for the European Junior championships which are to be held in Estonia later in the season and having been over 7m in 5 competitions this year this would seem to be a realistic target.