Hercules Wimbledon round-up: High-jumper Scales cements position as top U13 girl in UK

BY TOM POLLAK

Mabel-Rose Scales strengthened her position at the top of this season’s UK rankings for the girls’ U13 high jump by clearing a winning 1.60 metres in the Lily B League meeting at Walton-on-Thames on Saturday.

It added three centimetres to the 12-year-old’s previous best, set  in winning her event in the English School Cup competition at Linford Christie Stadium, west London, last month.

It was a fine warm-up for her competing in the London Schools Championships at Mile End next Tuesday.

Hercules Wimbledon sprinters filled two of the top three places in the South of England senior men’s 100 metres final at Bedford International Stadium on Saturday.

After winning their heats in 10.70 and 10.58 seconds, Rechmial Miller and Theo Etienne finished first and second in their semi-final in 10.41 and 10.43, both their fastest times this season.

They were both just pipped by one-hundredths of a second in the final where they posted slower times of 10.45 and 10.46 to take silver and bronze respectively.

Miller was feeling the strain of competing in the biggest race of his life, the 100m in the IAAF Diamond League Meeting in Stockholm two days earlier. He got a late call to run and was fifth in 10.53 in the tightest of finishes – he was just 0.02 seconds behind the runner-up in the eight-man race.

A third Hercules Wimbledon sprinter in action at Bedford was Surrey 100n champion Ryan Facey. He qualified for the semi-finals in finishing second in his heat in 10.96 and then went slightly faster to finish fifth in 10.90, narrowly failing to make the final.

Facey also contested the 200m on Sunday, finishing fourth in his heat in 22.41 and sixth in his semi-final in a faster 22.27, slightly slower than his lifetime best of 22.05 in taking the silver medal in the Surrey championships last month.

A squad of nine Hercules Wimbledon athletes picked up 18 medals in the Surrey Masters championships at Kingston on Sunday, 12 of them gold. Lisa Thomas and Paul Wignall gained a hat-trick of golds each.

Thomas took the over-50 400m and 800m and 300m hurdles titles while Wignall won the over-65 100m, 200m and 400m gold medals. Richard Clark was a double winner, taking the over-60 800m and 1,500m golds.

Emilie Bokor-Ingram won the over-35 400m, took silver in the 200m and bronze in the 100m. Hamed Agboke won the over-35 400m, Malcolm Davies the over-50 800m and Mark White the over-50 400m. White also took the 100m and 200m silver medals in his age group. Helen Davies took the over-45 800m silver medal and Emil Hage won the over-50 400m bronze.

Hercules Wimbledon’s youngsters are in action in the London Schools Championships at Battersea Park and the Surrey Schools Championships at Kingston.

The club’s older athletes are in action in the third of this season’s Southern Veterans League South London Division Meetings at Walton-on-Thames on Monday, starting at 6.30pm.

Adam Blyth headed home the field in the Wimbledon Common half-marathon on Sunday with a runaway victory. He crossed the finishing line at the Richardson Evans Memorial Playing Fields almost six minutes ahead of the second runner in one hour 18 minutes 43 seconds.