Herne Hill Harriers: Top-class operators compete at BMC meeting at Tooting Bec

Herne Hill Harriers attracted a star-studded lineup of athletes for its British Milers Club (BMC) event at Tooting Bec Athletics Track last week, writes Geoff Jerwood.

It followed the Diamond League meeting at the London Stadium and some of the competitors and other Olympians raced on a wet evening in South London, producing some of the fastest performances on British soil this year.

The men’s A 1,500m race proved to be the fastest in the long history of the BMC.

Before the Tooting meet a total of eight men had run times under 3:38 in all BMC races. No fewer than 10 men ran faster than that in the one race

The winning time was also a BMC all-comers record for New Zealand Olympian Sam Tanner in 3:35.15 and second place was a BMC Members record for Callum Elson (Cambridge & Coleridge) in 3:35.39.

The women’s A 800m saw a sub two minutes winner for the second year in a row at this meeting.

Alexandra Bell was the clear winner in 1:59.43, her fastest clocking since placing seventh in the final at Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021.

Three-time GB Olympian Steph Twell was third in the women’s 5,000m in 15:58.30, while Tokyo GB 1,500m representative Revee Walcott-Nolan ran both 800m and 1,500m, finishing second in the latter in 4:13.15.

Walcott-Nolan was just behind the winner of last year’s Tooting BMC women’s mile, as Georgia Bell claimed another Tooting Bec ground record (4:12.16).

The host club was well represented with a PB from Daniel Shaw in the men’s 1,500m B race in 3:55.16, while Mike Cummings ran 4:00.57 in the C race. George Withers won the D race with his first sub four-minute, clocking 3:58.23 ahead of Andrew Clarke, who ran 4:00.94. Also in this race was a PB of 4:04.39 for Thomas Patterson. U20 Harry Bell and Seve Loudon both claimed PBs with 4:11.20 and 4:17.55 in the E race.

Sam Bramwell ran a big PB in the men’s A 5,000m (14:25.62) and Morgan Roberts followed up his track debut (a 3,000m a week earlier) with sub-15 minutes for his first track 5,000m with 14:57.98.

Fred Hake and Warren Wilson ran 2:03.58 and 2:03.87 respectively in the men’s 800m E race and W40 Fiona de Mauny recorded 2:26.97 in the women’s C race.

In the final 5,000m race M40 Jeff Cunningham ran a big season’s best with 15:54.48, M45 Raj Paranandi just missed ducking under 16 minutes (16:00.14).

Grace Leyland and Jenny Nandi ran track 5,000m PBs in 17:39.61 and 18:04.80 respectively. Nikki Sturzaker ran her first race as a 50-year-old and duly claimed a club W50 record with 18:13.85, also a lifetime track PB.

Main Pic: Sam Tanner (102) win’s an amazing 1500m from Callum Elson (104) – Photo: Mark Hookway