Happy New Year for Jade
Published: 11 January 2018
It was a very Happy New Year for Oxford’s Jade O’Dowda who began 2018 by taking the silver medal at the National Indoor Pentathlon Championships (u20) at the National Institute for Sport in Sheffield (Jan 6th/7th). Second place was enough to secure Jade her first international call-up – she will represent GB as an under 20 in Madrid at the end of January, in a match involving athletes from Czech Republic, France, Spain and Poland.
Jade’s fantastic score took her to eighth in the all-time under 20 indoor pentathlon rankings after scoring a personal best 4,013 points. She finished only 36 points behind winner and Commonwealth youth long jump champion Holly Mills. Jade made a strong start, clocking 8.77secs in the 60m hurdles, before she took the overall lead with an effort of 1.74m in the high jump (also a PB). She maintained her place at the top of the standings with a throw of 11.26 in the shot, but was overtaken by Mills following the long jump (5.86). Just 0.44 seconds separated O’Dowda and Mills in the 800m, helping O’Dowda to secure the silver medal, and at the same time overhaul Morgan Lake’s record score of 3965 points from 2013. Jade is now only 76 points behind Jessica Ennis-Hill’s best score of 4,089 points.
Well done Jade – and the club will be cheering you on in Madrid on January 27th and 28th.
