Hercules Wimbledon AC: Fourth-place finish at Norman Park boost SAL Division One survival hopes

Hercules Wimbledon moved one step closer to Southern Athletics League Division One survival with another fourth-place finish, this time in Bromley’s Norman Park.

The event saw Hercules finish with 229 points, well clear of the bottom two of City of Norwich & Southampton AC with Blackheath & Bromley taking the win with 286 points, writes George Mallett.

Connor Kelly, 15, set a new national U17 record over 400m, running a blistering 48.54 seconds to finish third.

reddie Arkell ran 21.97 to take the men’s 200m A string. Arkell backed up a 10.91 performance over 100m earlier in the day but he was edged into second place at the line.

Joshua Martin took the B string 200m in a PB of 22.58.

Hercules’ strength in the sprints was further cemented by Kyra Stone in the women’s 200m A-string. She was a fraction outside her own PB in taking the win in 25.82. Hercules were second in the B string thanks to a 27.18 performance by Imala Remedios.

Stone also finished third over 100m in the A string (12.58).

The day was rounded out by a clear win in the men’s 4x100m where the quartet ran 42.19. The women were less than two-tenths of a second from a win, coming second in 49.88.

Lulu Weisz was second in the women’s B 100m hurdles (18.16), adding to a third place in the women’s B triple jump (9.54m). Ariana Shala took third in that event’s A string (9.92).

Much of the club’s success came in the field events. Christer Hagberg led the way in the men’s A hammer (44.65m), also finishing second in the A shot put and third in the men’s A discus with throws of 11.90m and 38.77m respectively. His busy day was completed with another third place in the men’s A javelin (38.08m).

Laura Duke and Darcey O’Shea took second places in the A and B string women’s shot put with 10.74m and 7.99m respectively. Duke was fourth in the A javelin (24.10m) with O’Shea winning the B string with 21.57m.

Success continued over 400m with a standout performance in the women’s B string. Ava Peters took more than 10 seconds off her PB for second in 62.09.

Jonathan Cornish was a comfortable winner of the men’s 3,000m (8:35.20), almost 15 seconds clear of the rest of the field. Backing him up was B-string winner Archie Walton, who paced U17 Benjy Street (8:59.23) to the sub-nine minute barrier.

Walton was third in the men’s 800m in 1:57.63. Isaac Lutaya improved his PB by a massive three seconds (2:00.16) to finish a narrow second in the B string.

Two second places were secured in the men’s 1,500m, with Cornish running 4:01.36 and Eoin Brady 4:12.56.

Jamie Bannister was second in the men’s B string 3000m steeplechase with Richard Jones third in the A string. The pair ran 11:28.15 and 11:08.17 respectively.