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Welsh Athletics U20 International Preview
24/08/2023 00:00, In Blog / Track & Field /
The 2023 Welsh Athletics U20 International will take place on Saturday at the Cardiff International Sports Campus.
The International meeting between Wales, Welsh Schools, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Islands Team, will mark the end of the international calendar, with 150 athletes set to compete.
This weekend will see some of the best U20 athletes go head-to-head. The line-up includes World Para Athletics silver shot put medallist Michael Jenkins (Pembrokeshire Harriers), Commonwealth Youth Games T38 100m Champion Tomi Roberts-Jones (DSW Para Academy) and Commonwealth Youth Games T38 long jump bronze medallist Will Bishop (North East Wales).
Fellow Commonwealth Youth Games athletes, Jessica Lee (Carmarthen & District Harriers) will take to the track and field in the long jump, high jump, and 4x100m relay, and Mia Lloyd (Carmarthen & District Harriers) in the ambulant discus.
Several athletes from last year’s event will be returning to represent Wales.
These include Moli Lyons (Cardiff Athletics) who took silver and set a new personal best in the 3000m. Since the event, Lyons has further improved her personal best time and now sits at 9:39.72 which was set at the England Athletics U20/U23 Open Championships, an improvement of almost 20 seconds since last year’s International.
Gracie Griffiths (Pembrokeshire Harriers) will take on the 5000m race walk, Griffiths has enjoyed a great season, picking up bronze in the UK Athletics Indoors Championships in January, finished fifth at the UK Athletics Championships and finished fourth at the Korzeniowski Cup representing Wales in Poland.
Christina Griffiths (Newport Harriers) will also be looking to improve upon the bronze medal from last year’s edition in the 100m hurdles.
Further Welsh representatives include Luca Phillips (Cardiff Archers) who recently represented Welsh schools at the SIAB Track & Field International, in which he broke the U17 Welsh long jump record with a distance of 7.15m. Phillips enjoyed a successful competition at the Welsh Junior Championships, in which he secured four medals.