Athletics: Herne Hill Harriers – Jasmine Nkoso becomes 2024 ESAA Junior Girls shot champion
By Geoff Jerwood
Herne Hill Harriers
A good number of Herne Hill Harriers young athletes travelled to Birmingham on Thursday with the London Schools team to the English Schools Athletics Association Championship, with some more also in the Surrey Schools contingent.
On Friday morning, Harriers’ combined events athlete Jasmine Nkoso became the ESAA Junior Girls shot champion for 2024. Her margin of victory was emphatic as her 13.84m PB throw was more than a metre ahead of her closest rival on the day despite the lifetime bests of the three medalists all being within centimetres of each other this year.
The London athletes’ new mark ticks off a number of impressive statistics. Her throw was an ESAA Championship best performance, a Herne Hill club and a Surrey Under 15 Girls record. She moves to the top of the UK age group rankings for this year to date and is now sixth on the UK all time list.
The 14-year-old is a very talented all-rounder, having won the pentathlon at the England Athletics U15 Indoor Combined Events Championships in March of this year. Huge credit goes not only to a very dedicated young athlete but also to her coach Anthony Mayhew.
Two other national schools’ individual medals were won in this “Kids Olympics”, both being bronze. London Schools also picked up gold medals in the Intermediate Girls 4 x 100m relay with two Herne Hill athletes in the winning team.
Ella Rennie doesn’t turn 15 until next month and is one of the youngest in the U17 Women’s age group for this season, but she has already claimed the club U17W records at both 100m and 200m. Here she was a good third in the Inter Girls 200m final with a strong 24.81.
Rennie was then part of the sprint relay victory along with Lily-Rose Brown, who had missed out on qualifying for her 300m final the day before, placing third in 40.28.
Surrey Schools team member Maalik Adamson placed a very good third on Friday afternoon in the Inter Boys long jump. His longest effort of the competition was 6.77m, just 11cm shy of his recent PB leap and marks him down as another one to watch for the future.
A special mention, too, for one who didn’t medal in his final, as in qualifying, Sam Moloney set a big PB in his Senior Boys 800m heat, placing second in 1:53.02. A tactical final proved to be a step too far on this occasion as he finished eighth, but after an improvement of almost two seconds in his heat, racing in the final was invaluable experience.
The Herne Hill Southern Athletics League team were competing on their home track at Tooting Bec and came away with a narrow win which sees them top Division 3 South London after three matches of four. Another win in the final fixture at Sutton on 17th August would see promotion to Division 2.
Harriers dominated the men’s sprint events with Andris Thorpe and Nickoy Robinson winning the 100m A and B strings in 11.36 and 11.66, then Byron Robinson and Jorge Pontes first A and second B in the 200m in 22.2 and 24.1. Towards the end of the matcg there was another win in the 4 x 100m relay.
Oliver Hector returned to the team to win both the men’s A 110m hurdles in 15.84 and the A 400m hurdles in 59.92. Diego Lister clocked a PB 63.37 to win the B 400m hurdles. Oluwafikayomi Awolope won the men’s A high jump with a clearance of 1.75m.
In the female events U17 Taliah Fleary won the A shot with 9.32m, with Alex Marginean taking the B string with 5.57m.
In road racing, there was good representation at the Saucony London 10K. Rory Christmas placed 35th in a huge field with 33:47. Moloney was back racing again after his 800m exploits in Birmingham, clocking 36:15.
Other male finishers from the club were James Cooper 39:10, Tom Irish 39:20 and Omar Garney 42:56. Three women finished in the first 22 with Charlotte Davies 10th in a PB 37:44, Megan Gildea was 15th in 38:35 and Annie Dalton 22nd in a PB 39:19.
Photo by Anthony Mayhew