Joe Young (Fencer) – Update
September 2008

Joe’s mother Steph sent the following update:

“Joe fenced in an under-17 (cadet) tournament at the weekend at the Bolton Arena. He fenced well in the morning only dropping one fight in the poules, to his old adversary Jamie Albert, also of Yorkshire. They fought point for point up to time . . . Jamie was given priority, Joe had to win a point in the final minute or the bout was given to Jamie, so he went on the attack. He pushed Jamie back along the piste, but Jamie is a canny fencer and seemed to have a sticky back foot (if he stepped off the back, Joe would have been awarded the point) with 11 seconds to go both fencers lunged and Jamie scored the decisive hit.

Joe was ranked 11th after the morning fights and met Callum Williams of Salle 126, whom he beat convincingly 15-7. He then fought James Ross of Reading, beating him 15-4 to go through to the last 16. Joe then came up against Phillip Marsh of Bath Swords, who is a left-hander. Joe pushed him to the back of the piste to draw attacks and when Phillip responded he was ready to counter-attack. The score stayed even throughout the first two periods of fencing with neither fencer able to gain an advantage, Joe took advice from his coach Adam Blight in the interval and changed his style in an attempt to gain the upper-hand. Phillip was able to match this and edged two points up, Joe pulled back a point and then with time running out, both boys lunged and took a double, giving Phillip the winning point.

Joe finished tenth in this national competition. The selection for the GB team going to Mödling, Austria will take place on 1 October 2008. Joe will be in the top ten and so is likely to be selected.”

Luke Smallwood (Field athlete) – Update
September 2008

“I ran only 0.02 seconds off my PB <personal best> in Ashford on 16 August 2008 and then went to run a leg in a new club record for the 4x400m, so there were many pictures in the paper of that . . . I then ran a PB in the 100m, 11.07 seconds in an open meeting at the back end of August, so considering all my injuries, I didn’t do too bad!”

Luke has now started winter training, with the cold dark evenings approaching. Luke is aiming to have a better recovery between training sessions, hopefully leading to fewer injuries. Luke has also been coaching two female athletes, one of whom is attending the English Schools Combined Event and has already achieved several PBs.

Jacqui Gould (Archer) - Update
August 2008

Nick and Tricia (Jeremy’s parents) attended the Kent County Archery Championships in Vigo Village on 17 August 2008. As well as learning a great deal more about archery, they watched Jacqui loose off many of the 144 arrows she had to fire during the day to retain her title of Kent Lady Champion which she has held for the last five years. She also won the Southern Counties Challenge medal, and achieved the most golds and hits, and helped Crown Archers win the Senior Team trophy too! As Jacqui said afterwards, “Not a bad day's work!”

John Francis and three fellow Scouts gave an entertaining and informative presentation on their expedition to Norway on 1 June. During the course of their trip, they had to undertake 11 challenges presented to them on the eve of their departure and they showed great ingenuity in achieving them. They were each awarded their Explorer Belts at the end of the presentation which was attended by Nick and Tricia, Jeremy’s parents. John said “The expedition has inspired me to try and complete my Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, apply for an expedition to Ecuador next summer and look into completing my Mountain Leader award.”

Recipient of a JWCT grant, decathlete Martin Brockman competed in the Kent Combined Events Championships competition in Erith at the end of the athletics season on 15 and 16 September 2007. Martin surprised himself by achieving a new personal best points tally of 6,436 points. This was an improvement of almost 300 points on his previous personal best. In the course of the two days of intensive competition Martin recorded personal bests in no less than six of the events including his first 2-metre high jump. The competition was watched over the weekend by his family and by Jeremy’s family Nick, Tricia, Matt and Tom. Martin said that after the competition it had taken him five days before he could use his legs again properly!

During 2007, he has moved from 25th in the country at U20s to 18th at senior level which he says is more than he hoped for. He continues with his training and is setting himself tough targets for 2008, with support from the JWCT.

Click here for newspaper report in the Kent Messenger.