Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Katie Snowden selected by GB for Tokyo Olympics

BY GEOFF JERWOOD

Herne Hill Harriers middle distance star Katie Snowden has been selected to represent Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Snowden, 27, was left with an anxious wait to be informed of her inclusion on the GB team after claiming her second consecutive British outdoor 1,500m bronze medal at the Olympic Trials meeting in Manchester on Saturday afternoon.

In any other year this would be a really good achievement, but this was not the colour medal she ideally needed on this occasion. Her 4:08.62 in placing a very close third was just one tenth of a second away from second place – which would have guaranteed her seat on a plane to Tokyo as an automatic selection.

However her excellent form so far this season – twice running inside the qualifying standard – saw her named on the team in the official British Athletics announcement on Tuesday morning.

Snowden has come a long way since her long injury in 2019 threatened to derail her career. The track and field athletics in Tokyo starts on July 30.

Kristal Awuah, the club’s other Olympic hopeful, finished fourth in a very strong 100m final in a season’s best time of 11.23 on Saturday. The race was won by potential Olympic medallist Dina Asher Smith.

Awuah followed up with eighth in the 200m final the following day. She was running off her 100m training and clocked 23.82 into a minus 2.9 m/s wind. She will compete for GB in the 100m and 4x100m relay at the European U23 Championship in Tallinn next month.

Phoebe Anderson also won a bronze medal in Manchester in the U20 3,000m Championship race on Friday evening with a PB of 9:34.79. It should reinforce her hopes for selection at 5,000m for the GB team in Tallinn.

Other Harriers athletes to compete in Manchester over the weekend were also females and are both still U23 competitors up against the senior athletes. Ore Adamson finished fourth in the triple jump with her best being 12.24m on Saturday. Havana Allistone-Greaves ran 61.55 for third in her heat of a strong 400m hurdles event on Friday.

Last Wednesday evening a number of Herne Hill athletes went along to the Cambridge Harriers Open/ Regional BMC Meeting, of whom many were from James McDonald’s young middle distance squad among whom Snowden started out when racing as a schoolgirl.

There were three other Harriers also competing. Senior Mike Cummings was fifth in the BMC 800m B race in 2:01.76, in the 800m E race Annabel Hobday (U23) was fifth in 2:14.22 and Poppy Craig McFeely (U17) was ninth in 2:20.72.

The Herne Hill young athletes racing in the BMC 800m started with Harvey Kande (U17) who ran in the C race and crept closer to two minutes with a PB of 2:02.78. In the D race Jacob Alley (U20) ran his best 800m to date, also with a PB in 2:05.13. In the F race Freddie Hake (U15) was just outside his PB in 2:17.43 with Sophia Sahai (U15) 2:22.67 also just outside her PB.

In the BMC 1,500m C race Keeran Sriskandarajar (U15) produced a quality run, beating older athletes with a 4:16.94 PB. In the BMC 1,500m D race Archie Penniceard (U15) and Fabien Whitelock (U15) had a battle to the finish line with Whitelock equalling his PB (4:37.91) to grab first place and Penniceard in second with 4:38.14, a huge PB.

In the Cambridge Harriers Open 1,500m race two, Jon Goldston (U15) won with a PB of 4:48.65. Orla Carroll (U15) also ran a PB time (5:04.46) in the same race. Josh Maguire (U15) ran 2:20.73 in the 800m.

PICTURE: CHRIS COOPER