David Guest misses medal

Thursday 22 July 2010

David Guest, who competes for Cardiff's British League team as a higher competition athlete (he is first claim to Bridgend) just missed out on a decathlon medal at the World Junior Championships in Moncton, Canada.

Although amassing a personal best score of 7,691, David could manage only fourth place, missing out after a closely contested event by the agonisingly small margin of 60 points to third placed Marcus Nilsson of Sweden.

David got his challenge off to a great start, recording a personal best 10.90 in the first event, the 100m, and lying in third place at the end of the first day, a mere five points behind second place.

The event was eventually won by Kevin Mayer of France with a total score of 7,928, well clear of Russian Ilya Shkurenev's 7,830 and Nilsson's 7,751.

David's individual performances were: 100m (10.90); Long Jump (7.36m); Shot Put (13.14m); High Jump (1.95m); 400m (49.11); 110m Hurdles (14.25); Discus (40.36m); Pole Vault (4.60m); Javelin (44.62); 1500m (4:36.13).

No doubt David will be disappointed to miss a medal but, at 18 years of age, can be proud of an excellent overall performance and can surely look forward to a fine career in athletics.

Well done to David and to his coach, Mike, who is his father.