King's Lynn club West Norfolk’s Alfie Williams fifth at England Age Group National Athletics Championships at Bedford

The England Age Group National Athletics Championships took place at Bedford International Stadium on a scorching hot day with West Norfolk’s Alfie Williams aiming for one of the top spots in the Under 20 men’s shot put.

This had to have been one of the best levels of competition seen. The qualifying entry standard was 14.80m in this age group with every athlete capable of more than 17m and for the winner a possible GB selection to the World Junior Championships in Cali Columbia.

Alfie had a solid start with a 14.87m put in round one. After an up and down series of throws he found his best put in the last round with a 16.12m put.

This was good enough for a fantastic fifth place as the standard was so high this time out. The winner was his Loughborough training partner Zac Davies (17.66m) who just missed out on the GB selection by 34cm.

Alfie has been the county’s leading light in the shot at junior level in every age group since he began his journey into athletics and grown stronger every year, holding the county record in every age category and competing at many major junior competitions, including an international in Dublin for England back in 2019 where he came home with the silver.

Alfie goes again in the final Youth Development League match on August 7 at Milton Keynes before the Welsh National Championships in Newport, South Wales, on August 13 and wraps up his final season as an Under 20 athlete at the England Throws-Fest weekend international on September 3 and 4 at Moulton, Northamptonshire.

Alfie will be aiming to break into the top UK top three and smash his own county record before moving up into the Under 23 and seniors.

Under 13 girls athlete Evie Clayton produced a fine performance in a 3k race during the last week.

It was part of the Peterborough Grand Prix series and Evie ran her best-ever time in 11.56mins, which beat her track time at this distance by a second and her cross-country time by 35 seconds.

Clayton was the fifth girl overall and second in her age category for this race and is really working hard in training and the results are clear to

see.

The Eastern Young Athletes League meeting at Colchester involved a small but effective West Norfolk AC contingent as part of this composite group making up team Team Norfolk.

Under 13 girls had three West Norfolk athletes as part of the team.

Rebecca Johnson competed in the high jump, finishing second in the A string wth 1.25m. She also came second in the shot put (5.94m) and sixth in the 100m in 15.0sec.

Myley Gilboy was fourth in the 100m (B string) in 14.9sec, fifth in the 200m (A string) in 31.9sec and fifth in the long jump (B string) with a 2.78m leap.

Dani Wathan was second in the high jump (B string) with a personal best of 1.25m, fifth in the long jump (A string) 3.17m, and was a non scorer in the 100m 16.4sec.

Siblings Charlie and Emma were the other WNAC athletes.

Under 17 athlete Emma ran a fabulous second place and a personal best performance in the 100m (A string) in 13.4sec, was first in the (B string) long jump with a 4.52m leap and was part of the Team Norfolk 4x100m relay team that came in second in a time of 53.3sec.

Under 15 boys athlete Charlie Broad was all over the field events with a second place in the javelin 28.27m (A string), fourth in the discus (A string) 15.88m and fifth in the shot put (A string) 8.12m.