CHILTON Trinity athlete Will Stokes was part of the Somerset School’s Combined Events Team who qualified for the English Schools National Combined Events Championships at The Bill Whistlecroft Arena in Yeovil last Saturday.

The South West Combined Events Championships, hosted this year by Somerset, attracts multi-disciplined athletes from Gloucester, Wiltshire, Devon and Cornwall, so the level of competition for the four-man Somerset team was extremely challenging.

Team Combined Events takes the highest three scores from four athletes in each team with the winning team scoring the highest number of points.

With the weather a little cooler than the previous weekend there was an argument that conditions were better for a day of athletics, but a strong crosswind made life difficult.

The first event of the day was the 80-metre hurdles, and with Stokes achieving a personal best and Somerset Athletes taking first and second, Somerset set their stall out very early.

With the field events (Shot Putt, Long Jump & High Jump) triggering injury to one of the Somerset team and forcing withdrawal, the remaining trio had to dig deep into their reserves for the final event of the day, the 800 metres.

At this stage, Wiltshire were marginally ahead of Somerset, so the three-man Somerset team knew that to qualify for the Nationals all three athletes had to run the performance of their lives as all three scores would count.

Wiltshire still had four athletes competing, so they could afford to run a tactical race to try and out-fox Somerset.

And that is exactly what they tried to do, but Stokes achieved another personal best on the day in his final race, and the other two Somerset athletes powered home.

As a result, Somerset finished in first place, winning the SW Combined Events Championships and with it a place in the English Schools National Combined Events Championships at Princess Royal Athletics Stadium in Boston, on September 16.

On qualifying, Stokes said: “I must not underestimate the amount of support that I have received from my coaches, Peter Grosjean and Graham Norris.

“They have encouraged me all the way, through the hard and difficult times, not allowing me to give up, always pushing to achieve something better and from it comes success.”