Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Six medals banked at South of England Championships
Herne Hill Harriers won six championship medals at the South of England U15 and U17 indoor track and field athletics championships at Lee Valley, writes Geoff Jerwood.
Dante Clarke won gold in the U15 boys long jump with 6.06m and was also second in the 60m hurdles final with a PB of 8.79. Newcomer Victoria Alicante-King was Harriers other gold medalist as she won the U15 girls shot put in her first major competition with 11.71m.
In the U15 boys shot last year’s top ranked U13 boy Alex Abebrese won a silver medal with 12.03m.
Herne Hill shot putting is in a very healthy state as another medal was claimed at this discipline by Kai Broadbent with a silver in the U17 men’s event with 12.64m. Ignatius Abebrese won bronze in the U17 men’s long jump (6.42m).
Harriers youngsters were also winning on Wimbledon Common as Lily Rose Brown and Sophia Sahai recorded an excellent one-two in the U13 girls race to lead the team to victory and consolidate their lead in the women’s Surrey Cross Country League after three of the four fixtures of the season.
Backed up by Eva O’Hanlon in fifth and sister Grace in 10th the girls team won by 26 points and the B team of Izzy Perry, Vivi Marshall, Anna Forster and Rosalie Laban were third team on a day of dominance in this age group.
Newly-crowned Surrey County Cross Country champion Phoebe Bowen was the first U15 finisher in the combined U15/U17 girls race and was supported by Claire van Heel in 34th and Annabella Bailey in 38th. The team placed sixth in the U15 category.
The Herne Hill U13 boys team were a close second in the Surrey League at Beckenham Place Park.
Oak Buchan led the team home in fourth place. Josh Lee Baum was eighth, fast-improving Josh Maguire ninth and Keeran Sriskandarajah 15th. The U15/17 boys team was fifth with Sam Camenzuli 13th, Harvey Kande 16th Robin Bebbington 29th and Jacob Alley 30th.
The senior men’s A team placed third in their Surrey League match at the same venue.
Harriers have a chance to finish third of fourth in the Division One table if another strong performance can be produced in the final race in Lloyd Park on February 8.
The first man in red-and-black was Mike Cummings, six days after he had raced 3,000m indoors in Sheffield. Andrew Warburton was 30th. Quality packing saw Lewis Laylee 38th, Nick Dewar 41st, Carl Delaney 43rd, Rich Henderson 44th, Angus Butler 45th, Brandon Dewar 47th, Jack Dickenson 49th and Simon Coombes closing the scoring A team of ten men in 52nd.
The A team were backed up by the B – Andrew Grigg 72nd, Robin Jones 79th, Jeff Cunningham 81st, Matt Cartwright 95th, new M40 Ant Buchan 99th, Henry Brown 106th, Eoghan Wiles 116th, Jon Key 132nd, Gav Newsum 138th and Richard Keeble 140th.
The senior women placed seventh on Wimbledon Common.
The leading athlete in the team was a V35 who is training with track rather than cross country as her end goal. Fiona de Mauny’s next races are at 400m and 800m indoors this weekend at Lee Valley at the London Indoor Games.
De Mauny’s 19th place was followed by Julia Wedmore (21st) and Sarah Grover (24th). The A team of five women was completed by Lara Langston (60th), Aimee Hargreaves (66th), Karen Ellison (70th) and Shannon Sinclair (72nd).
The eighth Herne Hill woman in the top 100 was Katie Kedward (93rd).
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