ANDOVER AC’s Holly Mills’ impressive early season indoor form continued last weekend when she was crowned the England Athletics National Indoor U17 long jump champion at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.

Mills’ winning jump of 6.02m made her only the fourth bottomage female athlete to jump in excess of six metres, and ranks her ninth in the world in the U17 age group with another year left in the age category.

Despite having moved up to the U17 age group, Mills was hopeful of a medal having won the U15 title last year, plus she was ranked at one in the UK going into the event, having won the South of England Indoor Championships in January with a PB jump of 5.91m.

Competition was tough, though, with last year’s U17 runner-up Eleanor Broome, who had a PB of 5.93m, plus last year’s other U15 medallists in the 18-strong field.

Mills was drawn to jump immediately after Broome and having seen her opponent open with 5.74m responded with 5.86m to lead the competition. Neither athlete improved in round two but Mills extended her lead at the halfway stage with a jump of 5.88m.

In round five Broome closed the gap with a jump of 5.83m and with Lucy Hadaway also jumping 5.83m Mills needed a big jump to consolidate her position.

She then produced her biggest ever, championship-winning jump of 6.02m.

The final round saw her finish with another good jump of 5.90m while Hadaway moved into second place with 5.90m and Broome finished third with a best of 5.83m.

Mills was also in action the following day on the track in the 60m hurdles where she had set herself a goal of reaching the final.

With 50 athletes entered, Mills was in the first of seven heats where she produced a new PB run of 8.79 to progress to the semi-finals then produced an improved PB performance of 8.70 to take her through to the final.

It was a close final with Mills taking fifth place in a four-way photo for second in yet another PB of 8.66 behind the winning time of 8.51, with only four one hundredths separating second and fifth.

Mills will now be focusing on the forthcoming track and field season where she is looking forward to competing with senior athletes in the Southern League for Andover, while also competing in the Premier Division of the Youth Development League with current national champions Blackheath and Bromley AC.

Another Andover athlete competing at these Championships was Amy Jaramazovic in the U20 400m and with several of the leading athletes in the UK in the competition she knew that she would need a good run to reach the final.

A fourth place finish in her heat was not enough to make the final, however, she was happy with her time of 57.61 as this was a new PB and an improvement of over a second since the start of the year.