Hercules Wimbledon AC round-up: Athletes in action at three meetings this weekend

BY TOM POLLAK

Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club athletes will take part in meetings at Lee Valley, Wimbledon Park and Morden Park this weekend.

Teenager Freddie Arkell, who was Britain’s top indoor 200m runner as a 14-year-old in 2019, is in action at Lee Valley on Sunday where he competes over 100 and 200m. It will be his second competition since September after winning a rarely run 300m race there earlier this month in a lifetime best of 35.21 seconds, the fastest time by a British athlete over the distance in 2021.

He won by more than half-a-second despite being the youngest of the five runners in his race. He improved on his PB of 36.10, set in 2018.

Another Hercules winner was rookie sprinter Khalid Ali, clocking a PB of 11.98 in his 100m race. He also took second place in the 200m in a lifetime best of 26.4. His times were a significant improvement on 12.43 and 25.8, set at the South London Athletics Network meeting at Tooting Bec last September. Fellow teenager Jamel Mignot will also be returning to Lee Valley where he made a winning debut in the 100m (12.83).

Veteran Felix Allen finished 28th out of 302 runners in the Chase the Sun 10km road race in Stratford’s Olympic Park. He was top finisher in the over-45 category in 36:20.

International sprinter Rechmial Miller was unable to find his best form when he competed in the Jamaican trials for the Tokyo Olympics in Kingston, Jamaica. He finished fourth in his 100m race in 10.72 – his first competition since racing in the British trials in Birmingham in August 2019. His time was significantly slower than his PB of 10.33, set in 2017.

The club are staging a throws and jumps meeting at their Wimbledon Park stadium on Sunday morning between 9.30-11.30am.

All-rounders Mark Andrews and Jenny Steinitz have entered for the long jump, shot and javelin while Ben Taplin and Darcy O’Shea are down for the javelin and long jump, respectively.

Sunday also sees the staging of the first Downs Young Athletes cross country league meeting since February last year. Originally scheduled for December, it will be staged in Morden Park.

There will be three races for both boys and girls – U11s at 10.30am, U13s at 11am and U15s at 11.30am.