Antonio is an English champion!

Athlete Antonio Infantino’s amazing career continues apace this summer, with a win in the 200m at the English Schools Championships on 14 July, and another win in Newport, Wales, last Saturday at the International Schools Championships.

He set a new personal best (PB) at the English Schools Championships, first winning his heat by a huge margin (with 22.00s) on the Friday and the semi-final on Saturday in a time of 21.95s. He went into the final as clear favourite and won in the new PB of 21.73s, also having run the fastest time in the UK this year.

The event was broadcast live on Sky Sports and they gave Antonio fantastic coverage. He has now received his England vest and went on to compete for England last weekend in Wales in the International Schools Championships.

This event was sponsored by Sainsbury’s and Antonio and his family were surprised to find that he had been selected as the face of the English Schools Championships by Sainsburys and his posters (about 8ft in height) were all over Birmingham City Centre and in the Sainsburys tent at the venue!

The journey to the International Schools Championships was horrendous because of the weather conditions but the English team managed to travel by coach, arriving at 2am on Saturday morning!

Despite being the favourite, Antonio was drawn to run in lane 1 (the worst lane for a 200m sprinter), but he ran the race perfectly, winning in a time of 22.02s (considering the lane and the weather conditions, this was great).

Antonio’s mother, Tina, says he was extremely proud to be representing Haileybury and England, especially when they introduced him as the English Champion from Haileybury College Hertford!)

He is now looking forward to the UK Championships in August, where he will compete in the 100m and 200m.