England call-up for Stratford AC star Sumners

STRATFORD AC’s Jack Sumners has been selected to compete for England Schools in the International Schools Sport Federation (ISF) World Cup for Schools.

The multi-country event is being hosted in Nancy, France, at the end of this month.

This event is an unusual format, because only six athletes are selected and they have to be proficient in both a track and field event.

The team has to be selected to collectively score points against a points table and ultimately the team that wins the World Cup is the team with the best total from ten events.

As the current leading under-17 100m hurdler in the country over the 100m hurdles and the 2nd highest ranked long jumper, Sumners’ consistent performances earned him a coveted spot on the team.

After his recent personal best over 100m, he is also likely to find himself in the relay team as well.

Sumners is following in the footsteps of Andrew Pozzi and Rory Dwyer, as another Stratford AC athlete who has gained recognition at international level either hurdling or jumping

It comes after a year of hard training, three times a week, along with two other training sessions in the gym.

Along with his team-mate Ollie Cresswell, they have also both been battling for the under-18 qualifying time for the Commonwealth Youth Games to be held in the Bahamas in July.

Sumners again ran the qualifying time in two specially-arranged races at Bedford at the weekend with a blistering time of 13.51, which is the third fastest in the world this year.

Cresswell is only just a couple of strides away of meeting that target and has other opportunities before the team for the Bahamas is selected at the end of this month.

Jack’s PE teacher at Stratford School, Guy Wnuk, said of his selection: “Jack has not only been a model student at school, his hard work and diligence in PE has been a credit to our department.

“We are immensely proud of his achievements and see him as a role model to our younger students. Through working with Stratford Athletics Club we hope to support more talented athletes to reach the high standards Jack and many of our students have reached.”