Since the hectic weekends of the London Marathon and the first track meet at Stoke Mandeville, the season is now well underway for Jenny Archer’s athletes and as expected, the team are continuing to go from strength to strength.

After laying down the foundations for a successful season with some intense training sessions and a tough start to the season, the results from many months of determination, hard work and sacrifice are finally starting to show.

In recent weeks, races, personal bests and recognitions off the track are coming almost as frequently as the major honours on David Weir’s CV- relentless.

At the Westminster mile, our young guns were certainly showing their worth as Graham Spencer and Morgan Woods grafted incredibly hard to earn a second and third place finish on the podium, whilst Eden Rainbow-Cooper cruised to a first placed finish in the girls race.

There were also personal bests recorded by Spencer and Woods that day, only for the latter to smash that PB by recording a time of 5 minutes and 9 seconds at the Worthing mile a week later.

It also made for a fitting occasion that as our athletes were presented with their medals, the academy’s mentor David Weir and coach Jenny Archer were on hand to give out the honours and congratulate the guys on yet another remarkable achievement.

Weir also couldn’t resist strolling around the course that he had set a WR on, this time pushing the mile in his day chair alongside the likes of Lord Sebastian Coe.

Just seven days later, with many of the academy’s athletes competing internationally, some our junior and senior athletes headed to Stoke Mandeville for the second BWRA track meet of the season.

Under the watchful eye of the ever-hard-working and dedicated Jenny Archer, our athletes once again made everyone at the academy proud.

Not only did everyone who competed record some excellent performances and fast-times, but it was also the welcoming, friendly and fun atmosphere that our friends, families and athletes showed that really proved what Weir Archer were about.

Led by coach Jenny Archer, the academy show a real togetherness and great spirit at Stoke Mandeville.
Meanwhile, while some of our athletes were racing extremely well in England we also had others competing all over the globe.

In Paris, Olivia Gallagher and Hilmy Shawwal were plying their trade against international competition, whilst Will Smith, Mickey Bushell, Sheikh Shiekh, JohnBoy Smith, Dillon Labrooy, Jamie Carter, Jabari Knight and Yasmin Somers were all competing in Switzerland.

The casual Mickey Bushell MBE will be making more interesting facials after being selected for the 2017 World Champs
To say how well the athletes raced would be extremely hard to describe considering PBs came around more often than the weekend, as several athletes were certainly making their case for a bright future in the sport.

After recent illness, it was also great to see Great Britain’s Mo Jomni out in Switzerland supporting the team, as he begins his recovery to full fitness.

Having performed consistently well throughout the year, we would also like to congratulate Mickey Bushell MBE and Abbie Hunnisett on being selected to represent Great Britain at the Para-World Championships at London 2017.

Everyone at the academy is extremely proud of their achievement and it is certainly a symbol of the hard-work they have put in since the Rio Paralympic Games.

A hard working and dedicated duo- Abbie with her coach and father Mark Hunnisett
Finally, on June 21st the academy’s athletes, friends and families will be attempting to break a Guinness World Record in order to raise money for the Weir Archer Academy’s charity.

The challenge is as follows:

On the longest day of the year, seven of the clubs cyclists who not only give up their time to help our athletes train but have also trained tirelessly hard and sacrificed their time for this event, will set off from the track in the early hours to ride 150 miles each heading to Brighton coast and back.

Whilst our cyclists are doing this, all of the Weir Archer academy squad will complete a 250 mile relay on the Kingsmeadow track and in Richmond Park.

The goal for the fundraising is £10 per mile x 1300 miles total and therefore reaching a total of £ 13,000.

We are trying to raise money to provide new chairs for new members and maintain all equipment to help us with a growing membership, build a new storage and winter training facility and to help us fund more coaching courses.

So if you can come down to support at Kingsmeadow or would like to donate any money to help the academy it would really be appreciated.

You can donate money by clicking here.