Hercules Wimbledon AC round-up: Jaleel Roper makes it Surrey Schools 100m treble

BY TOM POLLAK

Teenager Jaleel Roper showed his best form of the summer as he won the Surrey Schools intermediate boys 100 metres title at Kingston. 

He raced to victory in the final in 11.06 seconds, after sailing through the heats in 11.38.

“It indicated Jaleel is getting back to his best form after slightly pulling his hamstring at the England indoor championships in February at Sheffield,” said coach Paul Miller. “It was only his second competition of the summer so I expect him to go faster now.”

It completed a hat-trick of Surrey Schools 100m titles for Roper after he took the junior boys’ gold medals in the previous two seasons. 

Tara Bartlett (junior girls 200m) and Ellen Weir (junior girls 1500m) raced to bronze medal-winning performances at Kingston.

Commonwealth Games 400m runner Dwayne Cowan competed in two European Classic Meetings. He finished third in the 400m in Prague in 46.18 and four days later was fifth in Chorzow, Poland, in a slightly slower 46.31. These were his first races since competing in the Commonwealth Games in Australia in April.

The standout Hercules Wimbledon performance at the South of England championships at Bedford was a senior men’s 5000m bronze medal-winning performance by Andrew Penney. He crossed the line in a lifetime best of 14:36.32 after finishing third in his heat the previous day in 15:15.34. 

He took almost 19 seconds off his previous best of 14:55.02 set two months earlier.

European under-20 championships representative Rechmial Miller showed his best form of the summer in finishing fifth in the senior men’s 100m championship in 10.55, racing into a slight headwind. He improved through the rounds winning his heat in 10.66 and finishing second in his semi-final in 10.55 with a slight tailwind.

Teenager Ryan Facey, in only his first year in athletics, just missed out on a medal in the under 20 100 metres final. The Surrey silver medallist clocked a lifetime best of 10.86 into a slight headwind finishing 0.02 seconds behind the bronze medallist.

Hercules Wimbledon’s men posted their best performance of the season in finishing runners-up in their home Rosenheim League Eastern division meeting at Wimbledon Park, while the women’s team continued to dominate their section. 

Supervet Dominic Bokor-Ingram won the men’s 400m while there was a quartet of women’s victories through Johanna Tofte (200m), Ayoola Ajayi (400m), Rebekah Riches (800m) and the 4x200m relay team.

Hercules Wimbledon runners took the men’s and women’s honours in Saturday’s Bushy Park 5km parkrun. Jonny Cornish headed home the 1,266-strong field in 15:41 with Claire Grima first woman in 18:22. 

Adam Harwood was the best of 16 Hercules Wimbledon runners on Wimbledon Common finishing second in 17:49 and Fred Slemeck was second of 282 runners in Keswick in 16:37. Emilie Bokor-Ingram was second woman finisher in Amager, Denmark, in 21:20.

Teenage European junior championships hopeful Chad Miller will be aiming to clinch his place in the team when he competes in the England under-20 championships at Bedford this weekend. He is entered for both the 100m and 200m. His stronger event is the latter – he is the third fastest of the 44 runners entered. 

Miller decided to miss last weekend’s South of England Championships to focus on the England Championships. 

The club’s other youngsters will be in action in their third Youth Development League Lower Age Group meeting at Sutcliffe Park, Eltham, on Saturday.