Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Awuah and Snowden squeeze in more race action
Kristal Awuah and Katie Snowden followed up their medal-winning performances at the British Championship as each squeezed some more races into last week.
British 100m silver medalist Awuah jetted to Italy in pursuit of improving on her fastest time at this distance. She clocked 11.47seconds to place second in an international field in Rovereto.
She then raced two 100m races in Poznan, Poland on Friday evening – winning both in 11.44 and 11.37. The latter, although fractionally slower than her championship final time was within the allowable wind gauge reading, so is her official season’s best time for 2020.
Awuah raced on Sunday in Germany in the highest quality meet she has attended this summer as she placed third in 11.44 at the ISTAF meeting in Berlin – behind two world-ranked women.
Snowden also enjoyed a busy few days as she brought her short track season to a close after her British 1,500m bronze.
She won the elite women’s race at Aldershot on Thursday evening where she was given 4:10.1, less than half a second outside her fastest time for this year. Snowden recorded a clear victory ahead of British Championships 5,000m bronze medalist Amelia Quirk, who was over four seconds in her wake.
Then on Saturday at the SLH open races at Coulsdon, a highlight of the meeting was an impressive battle which saw prodigious U15 boy Zac Crowther’s 800m PB run of 2:01.74 just hold off senior women’s club record holder Snowden in a close and exciting race.
Snowden was rewarded with her season’s best time 2:01.91. She finished two seconds ahead of Ellie Baker, who won bronze at the British Championship last week at this race distance.
Awuah is ranked third senior woman in the UK at 100m, Crowther is fourth U15 boy at 800m, while Snowden is seventh senior woman at both 800m and 1,500m.
Jessica Craig, representing Northern Ireland, was seventh woman at the Antrim Coast Half Marathon on Saturday in 75:45. In a separate race Jack Brotchie ran 70:42, Andrew Warburton 70:49 and Marc Geraghty 71:43, all of them PBs.
In the same race as Snowden at Aldershot, GB cross country junior international Charlotte Alexander ran her first track race of the year and was close to her PB in 4:29.2.
Sarah Grover was similarly near to her best time with 4:34.7 in the previous race. Poppy Craig McFeely (U17) clocked a PB of 4:44.2 behind Grover. Mike Cummings ran a season’s best of 4:01.4.
Cummings ran 2:00.06 in the 800m at Coulsdon. Jack Dickenson and Eric Dol recorded 1,500m PBs of 4.14.45 and 4.20.15 respectively.
Lucy Wright (U15) and Keenan Sriskandarajah (U15) ran PBs at both 300m and 800m. Wright ran 47.59 and 2:30.45 and Sriskandarajah timed 40.04 and 2:07.38.
Orla Carroll and Sophie Jack – both U13 girls – ran PBs at 1,500m of 5:40.52 and 5:42.99 .
Alexander Wilson, Josh Maguire, Warren Wilson and Alfie Bryan clocked PBs in the U13 boys section of 5:00.74, 5:11.36, 5:12.36 and 5:35.16.
Evan Cowell-New (U15 boys) won his 1,500m race in a PB of 4:59.25, with Robin Bebbington and Alex Jack also running their fastest times with 4:30.97 and 5:03.68 respectively.
Dylan Sweet ran a 1,500m PB of 4:11.58.