Herne Hill Harriers athletics round-up: Kristal Awuah races to top of the UK women’s 200m rankings

BY GEOFF JERWOOD

Streatham sprinter Kristal Awuah sped to the top of the UK women’s 200m rankings for 2020 over the weekend as she broke her own Herne Hill Harriers club senior women’s record by clocking 23.20seconds.

The 21-year-old improved her previous best time from last year by four hundredths of a second to win her race at the Gouden Spike meeting in Leiden, Holland on Saturday – despite an unhelpful minus 1.2 metres-per-second headwind.

It saw Awuah move up from second to first on the British list this year.

She also placed second over 100m in 11.59.

Awuah ran her fastest 100m time of the year – 11.33-  last week in Bellinzona,  Switzerland to place second in a good international field. This performance cemented her third place GB ranking at the shorter sprint event.

Awuah now has high hopes for 2021 and the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games where she could potentially qualify for the British team at 100m, 200m and the 4x100m relay.

A couple of the club’s newest members raced at the RunThrough 10km road race in the London Olympic Park on Saturday and returned PBs. Jenna Wilkinson took almost a minute off as first woman in 38:44, while Katie Rose was fourth woman in 39:25 – her first sub-40 minutes 10km.

The Night of Fifteen 1500s was co-hosted by Belgrave Harriers and Herne Hill Harriers Much at Battersea Park last week.

Fraser Hagell ran a PB of 4:52.90. Then a couple of 1,500m races later Jonny Whittall and Sarah Grover swapped the lead before Whittall prevailed with a PB 4:36.25 with Grover’s 4:37.84 backing up her slightly faster run at Aldershot last week. Robin Jones clocked 4:39.80 to finish fourth.

Jeff Cunningham won race number seven in 4:22.67. Matt Cartwright ran a PB of 4:21.83 to come third in the next race.

The red-and-black vests chalked up another win with Jack Dickenson running another PB after the previous Saturday at Coulsdon, this time 4:13.35.

Race 11 featured four Harriers and Nick Dewar was second in 3:55.40, Mike Cummings fourth in 3:57.03 for a club M35 record, Brandon Dewar came seventh in 4:01.33 and Angus Butler was eighth in a PB of 4:05.13.

Arlo Ludewick’s 3:51.12 not only secured an exciting race win, but lowered his PB from 4:03.

He followed up with a PB of 1:55.05 in the 800m at the Trafford Open Series in Manchester.