Ben's New Challenge

High jumper ben challenger has assembled a dream team of ex-athletes to help turn a berkshire all girls school into a force to be reckoned with.

- Ben Coldwell

HIDDEN AWAY in a leafy, affluent suburb of South Ascot, Berkshire, is St Mary’s School, a Roman Catholic boarding school for girls with around 390 high achieving pupils and one of the least likely destinations you’d expect to see a semi-elite athletics centre.

Athletics at St Mary’s has benefitted over the past four years from the expertise of its esteemed head of athletics, British Olympic high jumper and two-time Commonwealth Games medallist Ben Challenger.

Overseeing a state-of-the-art athletics complex, complete with a six-lane allweather track – eight on the home straight – and fully equipped technical event facilities has been the retired high jumper’s passionate commitment since joining the PE staff in 2013.

Challenger says: “They had no facilities here. It was a typical grass track like you have at most schools. The school here wanted to build a track and some good facilities and they wanted an athlete to front it.

“My timing was really right then. I came in after I retired in 2012. In 2013 it was complete and they wanted someone to be the head of athletics at the school and I took that on.”

Having top-class facilities is one thing, but having the manpower and expertise to make the most of them is a different story altogether. So what did Challenger do? He consulted the “little black book”, called up a few old friends and, slowly but surely, has formed a coaching hub of British internationals.

“Over the past three or four years I started getting in what I call our ‘dream team’,” says Challenger. “We’ve got Mark Wiseman who does our throws. He’s done a lot of the masters and won medals doing that. We have Ian and Hayley Tullett, Marlon Devonish and myself.