TEENAGE sprinter Will Kennedy is hoping he’s not far off being back to his best after putting his injury problems behind him with a silver medal and a new personal best at the Midland Championships earlier this month.

The 16-year-old, from Westbury, thrust himself into the national top 20 for U17s as he clocked up a new 60m best-ever time of 7.18 seconds in the heats at the Birmingham NIA (National Indoor Arena), before going on to win a silver medal in the final (7.19) on March 8.

Kennedy, who competes for Team Bath, has missed most of the year so far with a back problem but has his fingers crossed that his injury complaint is a thing of the past.

“I’d had a bit of a problem with my back for a little while and then I competed at the South West championships in January and made it worse,” said the Wiltshire youngster, who is a pupil at Matravers School.

“I only ended up missing about a month and Birmingham went pretty well.

“I’m not sure if it’s 100 per cent gone, so I didn’t do the 200m there.

“I had a bit of physio and I’m just going to rest it a bit now and hope that it’s healed now.

“I’ve got a few weeks before the nationals (at the English Institute of Sport, in Sheffield, on March 1-2) so I’m just getting ready for that now.

“I’ll do the 60m again there and, depending on how I’m feeling, I might do the 200m too.”

l IN HER first competition of 2014, 15-year-old Grace Davies-Redmond, from Bradford on Avon, clocked personal bests for both 60m (7.81secs) and 200m (25.69secs) at the Birmingham Games, winning both of her U17 women’s races.

Southwick teenager Zoe Mattacks improved her personal best to 9.68secs in the 60m hurdles.

She started the season with 10.19secs – and recorded 8.28secs in the 60m, which was just outside her recent personal best of 8.17secs.

Frome sprinter Emily Dixon was also in action running the 200m indoors for the first time and also the 60m hurdles.

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