Now Adele wins senior title

Welshpool rising athletics star Adele Nicoll added the Welsh Senior Shot Putt title to her long list of successes on Saturday and has her sights set on next weekend’s British Under-23 Championships.

The Birchfield Harrier threw 16.08 metres in Cardiff to win the Welsh Seniors event by a big margin from Lucy Griffiths on 12.96m.

Adele Nicoll recently claimed the Welsh Under-23 record, the latest in her growing list of achievements, and recently told the press she is adamant the senior British record will also be hers one day.

The 19-year-old now has the under-17, 20 and 23 records and is confident she will also one day better the senior Welsh record of 19.06m and eventually the British best mark by Judy Oakes, who threw the shot put 19.36m in 1988.

“The 16.08 I threw didn’t even feel that good so there is much more room for improvement,” said Nicoll, who benefits from being a part of the SSE Next Generation programme.

“I definitely know I can extend that under-23 record in the coming months but we will have to see how far.

“There is so much more in there and so much more to work on. It is my first year at Cardiff University and my first year with all that support around me so we have just been putting all the pieces together slowly.

“I am getting stronger and there is loads of room for improvement. I definitely think I can get the senior Welsh and British record but I want to take it one step at a time. I am working on it metre by metre.

“It was 12 months ago that I was on the 15-metre barrier and now I am over 16m so it is a case of trying to get as close to 17m as I can and take it from there.”

Nicoll’s CV is already an impressive read: finalist in the World Youth Championships and European Under-20s, BBC Wales Junior Sportswoman of the Year in 2013 and 11 British titles in the shot put and discus at various different age groups.

She said: “The Commonwealth Games qualifying will open in December and looking at previous standards they put out, it is likely to be around 16.50m to qualify so I want to get as close to that as I possibly can before the end of the season. Once the qualification opens I then want to come out and smash it.”