Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Awuah and Snowden in the medals at British Athletics Championships
Kristal Awuah won a silver medal at the British Athletics Championships – with Peckham’s Imani-Lara Lansiquot pipping the Herne Hill Harriers runner in the women’s 100 metres.
The event took place behind closed doors in Manchester last weekend.
Katie Snowden took bronze in the 1,500m while Saskia Millard smashed the club senior women’s record on her 5,000m debut to finish an excellent fifth.
Awuah impressively won her 100m heat on Friday in 11.58.
Then in the final later in the evening she produced a strong finish to claim second place behind friend and rival Lansiquot (Sutton & District). Her time of 11.34, just one hundredth of a second ahead of bronze, was a season’s best, albeit the wind reading of plus-2.1 metres per second was over the limit for ‘legally’ accepted times by the smallest of fractions.
It was Awuah’s best outdoor performance of the year.
Very few athletes will have welcomed a place on the medal rostrum more than Snowden, who although having taken home British national indoor medals in previous years had been an almost perennial fourth placer in the main outdoor championship.
Finally this curse was lifted as Snowden followed up a second place qualification from her heat late on Friday night in 4:16.64 with a fine run in a tactical final in the last event on a chilly and sometimes wet Saturday afternoon. When fellow international Jess Judd and eventual winner Laura Weightman made their move Snowden covered the break well for as long as she could before coming home a clear third place in 4:14.00.
Millard, in her first year as a senior athlete, took 16 seconds off the club record as she recorded 16:02.03 on Friday night.
Michael Miller clocked 10.94 in his 100m heat.
Herne Hill Harriers had an open meeting of 800m and 3,000m races on Tooting Bec track last week.
In the 3000m races Brandon Dewar, Jeff Cunningham and Jonny Whittall all improved on their times recorded at the Wimbledon meeting the previous week with 8:49.90, 9:23.76 and 9:32.55 respectively.
Mohammed Ismail won his race in 9:47.52 ahead of M55 Gary Ironmonger (10:17.46), Sarah Grover (10:27.48) and Natasha Lodge (10:53.33).
Richard Keeble was another race winner in (10:03.22) with newcomer Dave Lambourn clocking 10:11.45.
The 800m included Hannah Edwards placing second in her race in 2:22.80, while the final race featured a close battle between U20 Dyan Sweet and M35 athlete Mike Cummings, placing second and third with 1:59.49 and 1:59.57 respectively.
Zac Crowther (U15) won his race with a PB of 2:01.88, while U11 Caspian Holmes stole a victory in a good 2:26.72.
Sweet and Cummings renewed their 800m rivalry on the same Tooting track on Saturday at the SLAN open meeting, this time the older athlete prevailed as Cummings ran 1:58.98 in third with Sweet fourth in 1:59.53.
Senior athlete James Stocker and U15 Joshua Lee-Baum ran PBs of 2:01.19 and 2:06.51. Harvey Kande (U17) clocked 2:07.69 and U17 Poppy Craig-McFeely ran a PB of 2:21.14.
Holmes improved his best time to 2:23.64, while U13 Jon Goldston won in a PB of 2:27.49.
In the 100m races on Saturday the fastest Harrier was Victor Nzolele in 11.27. Others to impress included U15 Dante Clark – who won in 12.22 ahead of U17 Oli Hector in a PB of 12.29, U15 Sapphire Haley (12.84) and U17 Saskia King (12.88). Memphis Ayoade (U20) won the fastest 200m race in 22.50 with U15 Alecia Davidson clocking a PB of 28.31.
Holmes and Goldston were again winners in 30.10 and 29.00.
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