Jim's bronze medal and a personal best

Jim Gillespie returned from the Midland Throws Pentathlon championships with a bronze medal and a personal best points score.
Jim Gillespie.;Jim Gillespie.;
Jim Gillespie.;

The Wragby throws expert was less than fully fit when he competed at Derby, following a rib injury earlier in the week.

The first event was the hammer, where a 26.45m throw set up him nicely.

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However, a below-par shot putt result of 7.96m was not what he wanted.

Back came Jim with a season’s best in the javelin to keep him in contention.

The fourth event was the discus and an excellent effort of 26.87m saw him move into third place.

“By now my ribs were killing me so I knew that I had to get a good throw in early in the last event,” Jim confessed.

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“The heavy hammer puts an incredible amount of torque on the body, so I was very relieved to put out an 8.96m throw with my first effort, securing third place.

“My final points score was also a personal best with 2,078 points.”

Jim’s son Kieran Gillespie and fellow Wragby athlete Callum Dean were in action at the second Youth Development League match of the season at Grimsby.

Kieran started with a third place in the long jump, clearing 4.59m, following this up with a personal best 1.63m in the high jump for second place.

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His next event was the javelin, and a throw of 31.84m saw him take first place.

Another first place quickly followed in the 110m high hurdles with 19.5 secs, his second best run this year despite an horrendously strong headwind.

A solid 24.48m in the discus, placing him third, finished a very busy day.

Callum had an excellent day, placing third in the 100m, running 12.3 secs, and winning the 200m in 23.7 secs, despite the same awful wind conditions.

These are superb performances for an athlete who has only just started racing and who has taken some very noteworthy scalps.