Herne Hill Harriers round-up

BY GEOFF JERWOOD

Kristal Awuah signed off here 200m racing for the season with a fine win at the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi, Kenya on Saturday.

The Streatham athlete, already sat on top of the British women’s 200m rankings, extended her advantage as she improved her personal best time to 23.05 seconds in a close race against an international field.

Awuah revised her own Harriers’ club senior women’s record into a headwind of minus-0.7 metres per second at an altitude of around 1,750m.

Awuah had here final 100m race of the season in the Wanda Diamond League in Doha the previous weekend.

She rounded off a successful season in Africa, close to her family roots at the start of Black History Month in the UK. Awuah will soon begin her winter preparations for a big year in 2021.

Her latest club record was one of a series of new marks set by senior and U20 women this season.

There was more action at Tooting Bec with another open track meeting, this week hosted by Herne Hill Harriers.

The feature event was the Stan Allen Mile races with the home club’s Mike Cummings running home a very strong winner of the main race in 4:24.47.

A close scrap for third and fourth place saw U20 Dylan Sweet just ahead of Jack Dickenson as they recorded 4:33.13 and 4:33.79 respectively. In the second mile race James Stocker and Joe Elliott were engaged in a similar battle for the same finishing positions as they ran 4:53.42 and 4:53.89.

Young athletes from the club again turned out in big numbers and there was a good run from U13 Orla Wright (5:35.28) in race four, then U15s Alex Jack and Harry Bell were first and second in the fifth of the eight one-mile races in 5:20.24 and 5:25.94. Sophie Jack (U13) ran 5:55.14. Rosalie Laban (U15) clocked 5:53.34 to place second in the seventh race in a series that saw a total of 86 finishers in an annual event in memory of lifelong club coach and mentor Allen, whose daughter Sarah (W55) ran 7:56.41 in the final mile race.

The field events saw very good throws by Alex Abrebrese (14.62m) which ranks second in the UK U15 boys shot rankings and Victoria Alicante King (12.19m) whose performance puts her eighth in the national U15 girls rankings this year.

The 3,000m races saw Andrew Grigg timed at 9:21.72 for third in the first race, then later M55 Gary Ironmonger in the third race occupied the same finishing position with 10:06.85.

Club president M55 Keith Newton was eighth in 10:39.64 and Julia Wedmore placed 10th in 11:01.42, then U15 girl Izzy Perry ran a PB 11:06.87 in the next race.

There were few Herne Hill athletes in the 100m, but Khelya Ekwe (U15G) ran 13.70 and Yunas Amoo-Gottfried (U13B) 15.69. In the 800m races Zac Crowther (U15), Harvey Kande (U17) and Keeran Sriskandarajah (U15) ran times of 2:02.19, 2:06.96 and 2:07.86 respectively.

A number of Harriers ran in the Virtual London Marathon Nick Bester ran his best time so far for the distance with an excellent 2:28.35.