Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Eliza Nicholson wins gold on schools international debut

Herne Hill Harriers’ rising middle-distance star Eliza Nicholson won gold on her schools international debut on Saturday in Grangemouth, Scotland, writes Geoff Jerwood.

Representing England Schools at the SIAB Home International meet, the 16-year-old won her intermediate girls’ 3000m race by a big margin of around 20 seconds in 9:25.85.

It was fast running given the very windy weather conditions. Nicholson was within a couple of seconds of her PB, which is also Harriers’ U17 women’s record.

She got herself back to winning ways after narrowly missing out on gold at the English Schools Championship in Birmingham two weeks earlier.

Next up competed for the Great Britain U18 team over 3,000m at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad & Tobago at the start of next month. Keeran Sriskandarajah will also be competing at these Games, representing the home nation in the men’s 800m.

On Saturday the men’s and women’s National Athletics League team finished sixth in Yeovil, the second of three fixtures. A return at least as good as that will be required in Liverpool in early August to keep them out of the relegation places.

Sam Bramwell front ran the men’s 5,000m from the gun for 12.5 laps, clocking 14:47.28, half a minute ahead of second place.

Sriskandarajah was third in the A string 800m, George Withers was second in the B 800m, while Daniel Shaw and Mike Cummings won the A and B 1,500m in times just outside four minutes. Andrew Clarke took the B 5,000m.

Harriers female throwers also scored top points with Zara Acton and Cerys Aboagye dominating the discus with 37.98m and 32.46m to win the A and B strings. Aboagye was second in the A string shot with 12.28m and Acton won the B with 11.50m.

Nathan Latigo won the men’s B 400m in 51.25 and Nate Standing the men’s B high jump with 1.72m, the same height cleared as Fikayome Awolope, who was third in the A string.

The women’s 4x100m relay team were the other event winners as Maleeka Royal-Howell, Alecia Davidson, Jaydine Robinson and Joyce Kalombo combined to clock 50.21. Earlier on Kalombo and Robinson were second in the women’s A and B 200m after having also competed in the 100m and the long jump.

Both of the men’s relay teams placed second. In the 4x100m Kehinde Adenuga, Byron Robinson, Rikaion Smith and Andris Thorpe ran 44.34 and in the finale 4x400m Harvey Kande, Oli Hector, Latigo and Sriskandarajah ran 3:29.77.

The women’s 4x400m team included a triple jumper and two middle distance runners and did well to place third.

All to play for in Merseyside on 5th August.