National Athletics League

Harry Kendall: Team England’s NAL-loving Star Wars fan keen to inspire young talent

Written by Alex Seftel

“As soon as I stepped onto the track, the nerves went away,” says Harry Kendall.

Last summer, the Tonbridge decathlete had the delight of representing Team England at a home Commonwealth Games. This year, he’s played a key role in his club’s NAL Championship-winning campaign, securing promotion to the Premiership. At the same time, he has gone the extra mile to inspire the next generation, fuelled by the enjoyment of a first major championships.

“The Commonwealths were pretty incredible, a new experience for me, but one I definitely enjoyed as much as I could have done. I think I got the most out of it,” adds the 26-year-old, who finished sixth in Birmingham with lifetime bests in the javelin and pole vault.

Harry dislocated his ankle in the build-up to the Games, which was never going to be ideal. But how many decathletes do you know who go into – or come out of an event without nursing any issues – and appear happy with how all ten disciplines have gone?

“When you have a bad event in the decathlon, you’ve just got to move on,” he insists. “Injuries and niggles are part and parcel of the experience. I have never woken up on day two feeling completely fresh. Most decathletes and heptathletes have a very high pain threshold. We know in our bodies what is a bit of tightness and what might turn into something more serious.”

Being used to pushing through the pain has helped Harry to develop resilience and that also helps at times when he might get less than the desired amount of shut-eye. “I tend to sleep very badly the night before day one,” he admits. “The night after day one, I’m normally so tired I just fall asleep really quickly. But I try and bank as much sleep as I can leading up to the competition.”

There is another layer to his psychological preparation which is a little reminiscent of an actor getting ready for a stage performance, or even a student sitting an exam. “Once I’m in bed before day one, I mentally go through every event and how I want them all to feel, I run it through from start to finish in my head.”

Of course, compromise must be found as getting the adrenaline up too high might stop you from drifting off to sleep. Harry has also found balance in his career when it comes to not over-competing. We all know how important multi-eventers can be at league fixtures, and how team managers can try and convince anyone to do just about anything to fill places.

“When I was younger, I used to just do as many events as I could,” Harry recalls. “Now I’m a little bit older and wiser, I try and cherry-pick more carefully so they don’t all overlap. But I love the National Athletics League. It gives the chance to pick a few events that we really want to focus on.”

Kendall won’t be challenging Team GB Olympian Alex Kruger’s unofficial record of attempting eleven events in a single NAL fixture anytime soon. One of those might even have been the marathon Alex ran across the stadium to keep up with his crazy schedule.

“Generally, we have to have a word with the officials and say ‘I know I’m in the discus, but I have to run the 4x400m relay now, maybe I’ll be back if I’m not too tired,” Harry explains. “For the team, sometimes it’s unavoidable, you’ve got to pick up points somewhere else. We are very in demand!”

Fortunately Tonbridge has a group of high-level multi-eventers, also including the reigning England combined events champion Lewis Church, allowing for a more even share. He participated in three events in June’s NAL Championship opener in Basingstoke – one fewer than Lewis – with a 200m win being joined by third places in the discus and javelin.

The two friends and training partners have also led on an innovative project that Church set up to inspire young talent. The Pro League – run through West Kent Athletics Club – has featured the likes of World Championship competitor Holly Mills and is a bit like the equivalent of Premier League footballers coaching junior academy players.

“There is an hour-to-90 minutes of all the ‘pros’ or athletes coaching the kids in events we’ve picked that day,” says Kendall. “After that, they have a break and then the pros get into a competition, divided into two teams. The kids get to sit trackside while international level athletes compete.”

“All the feedback we’ve had so far has been incredibly positive,” he declares, with the next event being on 14th July which will involve a three-discipline focus on the 100m, javelin, and pole vault.

The arrangement contains plenty of things that Harry would like to see more of in the UK – be it supporting aspiring athletes – or indeed ‘athletics triathlons’ for seniors.

“They have it in the Paris Diamond League. I don’t know if it would ever be possible to do it in London. That would be phenomenal,” says Harry who has recently spoken of feeling “sidelined” after combined events were not included in the main UK Athletics Championships in Manchester.

“We feel like we have got a lot to give to the sport,” he exclaims. “Every time I’ve seen British multi-eventers out in front of a crowd at a championships of any kind, they’ve garnered one of the biggest reactions of the day. The governing bodies at the moment don’t seem to think it’s as important to push that to the forefront for some reason. But it would be nice to see us getting more attention in future.”

In response, UK Athletics told BBC Sport it aims to develop “a more established combined events ‘festival’ experience” – and increase entry numbers – as putting Harry’s specialist competition in the main schedule, as was done in previous years “proved unsustainable”.

If decathlon isn’t getting enough air-time, Harry is keen to let the next generation know that they don’t need to specialise early in their careers. “They can do everything if they want to!” he adds.

It is at this point you realise that Harry – who is a big fan of Star Wars and Marvel – is perhaps living something of an action-hero dream, with Iron Man strength, Spiderman agility and javelin lightsabers.

He competed in events including the sprint hurdles, high jump, discus, javelin and 400m in the NAL this season. It begs the question, what wouldn’t Harry do at a league meeting?

“The long runs and probably triple jump,” says the East Sussex-based athlete who had two Southern League outings in the latter in 2016, winning in Walton. “I also did five fouls” he graciously admits.

Independent athletic league incorporating
the British Athletics League and
the UK Woman’s League, founded 2019.

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