Athletics round-up: Action at South of England Indoor Championships at Lee Valley
HERNE HILL HARRIERS
Lily-Rose Brown took centre stage by winning a South of England indoor gold medal at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre on Sunday, writes Geoff Jerwood.
Brown, 16, now competes in the U20 women’s category.
The Streatham resident rounded off a busy day with heat, semi-final and final in the best way by taking the 200m win in 25.15 seconds. Her time was just outside her PB, a strong effort at the end of three races.
Brown, right, said: “This is the most fun I’ve had at a championship. I’m beyond pleased with my result today. It was a tiring day but, nevertheless, everyone smashed it”.
Fred Hake, one of Brown’s training partners and club-mates, ran a big indoor PB in winning his heat in the U20 men’s 400m.
His clocking of 49.53 was an improvement of more than 1.5 seconds on his previous fastest on an indoor track. He then opted not to contest the final after feeling pain from a recent niggle with a view to saving his best for this weekend’s England indoor championships in Sheffield.
The big domestic cross-country event of the weekend was the British Universities and Colleges Sports Championships in Cardiff. One of Herne Hill Harriers’ internationals is the Cambridge University team captain and led the women’s team to a historic victory around the muddy circuit.
Poppy Craig-McFeely, who represented Great Britain at the European Cross in Turkey in December, finished eighth in the women’s long course (8km) race in the Welsh capital as her team packed their four runners in the first dozen.
It was the first time in 25 years that the title has not been won by one of the “big two” – University of Birmingham or Loughborough.
Other Herne Hill athletes racing well were Olivia Stillman for Cardiff University, placing 44th, and Grace Leyland for St George’s, only 15 seconds behind her in 49th. Stillman raced for the hosts and was heavily involved in organising what was a successful event.
In the men’s long course race Tom O’Mahoney was 135th for St George’s and Harry Bell 174th for Durham University.
In road racing a handful competed at the Chichester 10km on Sunday morning. John Franklin was 67th in 34:10, followed in by PB runs for Calum Murphy 35:33, Tom Foster 36:23 Nick Mahoney 36:24 and Muhamud Haile 36:35. The latter was fourth among over 55s.
HERCULES WIMBLEDON
Hercules Wimbledon indoor athletes took to Lee Valley for the South of England Indoor U20/Senior Championships held over Saturday and Sunday, writes George Mallett.
Success started in the sprints as Ryan Facey qualified for the senior 60m semi-finals, running a season best of 6.97s to finish third in his heat.
Joshua Martin finished sixth in the same race in a season best of 7.33. Facey returned for the semi-finals, acquitting himself well against Olympians Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and CJ Ujah to finish sixth in 7.07.
Priscilla Adu-Bodie, competing over the same distance, qualified for the semi-finals of the senior women’s, finishing fourth in her heat with 7.92 before running 7.95 to finish eighth in the second semi-final.
Over 200m, Khalid Ali qualified for the U20 semi-final, finishing third in 23.11 in his heat. He returned a few hours later to clock 23.80 for fifth in semi-final two. Goncalo Mosca ran 27.23 in his senior 200m heat, finishing sixth
Competing in the high jump, Mabel-Rose Scales was unlucky to not make the U20 podium, clearing 1.65m, identical to third place Ella Grace Thomas, but finishing fourth as she took more attempts to get there.
Ryan Yap was 12th in the U20 long jump final, leaping 5.75m to cap off a productive weekend for the Hercules athletes as they build into the summer track and field season.
Elsewhere it was a quiet weekend. Rhys Boorman ran 15:22 at the Hastings parkrun, equalling his parkrun best and good enough for tenth out of any parkruns in the UK this weekend.
On Sunday Andrew McArthur was fourth at the Guernsey AC Chertsey 5 Miler, running 27:50, just 12 seconds short of the podium.