Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Four youngsters win silver at English Schools Championships

Herne Hill Harriers had four of their youngsters win silver medals at the English Schools’ Athletics Association Championships in Manchester over the weekend, writes Geoff Jerwood.

A total of 20 athletes from the club competed for their county schools teams, 18 for London and two for Surrey. Two of them also added a sprint relay medal each to an impressive tally.

Two of the silver medals were achieved in the junior girls’ age group. Ella Rennie gritted her teeth to score a narrow win in her 200m heat on Friday in 25.80 to set up a medal opportunity for the following day’s final. Her time of 25.91 was against a headwind of minus 2.1 metres-per-second.

Lily-Rose Brown claimed a silver in the 300m, winning both her heat and semi-final on Friday with a PB of 40.83 and 40.90 respectably.

Brown improved her PB to 40.50  in Saturday’s final. Her time elevates her to second place in the UK U15 girls rankings. She was then part of the London Schools’ 4x100m relay team that took silver.

Freddie Hake was contesting the 300m distance and won both his heat and semi-final in the junior boys’ section last Friday. Hake was progressively quicker through the rounds, with 37.38 in his heat and 37.28 in his semi-final. He ran a PB of 36.56 to take silver. Later on Saturday he added a gold to his collection with the Surrey Schools’ 4x100m relay team.

One more silver medal from the Harriers’ contingent was senior girls’ 100m athlete Niyah Costley.

Earlier in the season she had experienced racing at the same venue in the UK Championship and has also been a member of the Herne Hill U20 women’s 4x100m club record-breaking team back in May.

Costley was able to draw on all of this to win her heat last Friday (11.93) before placing second in her final on Saturday (11.78). The latter was assisted by an over-the-limit tailwind of 2.8m-per-second.

Another eight Herne Hill young athletes set PBs.

Lucy Wright and Sophia Sahai ran 2:15.89 and 2:16.31 in the junior girls 800m. Wright exited in a strong heat, while Sahai went on to place eighth in the final with 2:18.20.

Orla Wright (4:52.81) and Sophie Jack (4:59.09) both ran their best times to date in the junior girls 1,500m but neither advanced to their final. It was Jack’s first time under the five-minutes barrier.

Junior boys Jon Goldston and Sheriff Silly also recorded PBs. Goldston clocked 37.30 in the 300m. The next day he finished eighth in 37.91 in the same final in which Hake won his silver medal. Silly was fourth in the long jump (5.84m).

Dante Clarke was fourth in his 100m hurdles heat (13.77) before finishing eighth in the final (14.11).

Khalil Sesay was timed at 22.78 for third in his 200m heat. Both were in the intermediate boys’ age group,

Keeran Sriskandarajah was seventh in a strong inter boys’ 800m final (1:55.42).

Alexander Wilson, one of nine athletes from James McDonald’s training group who competed, was only a fraction outside his PB in the junior boys’ 1,500m (4:25.49).

Je’nae James was fifth in the senior girls’ shot (10.95m). Alexander Abebrese was seventh in the inter boys’ shot (12.82m). Solomon Thompson Moodley came ninth in the junior boys’ high jump (1.64m).

Georgie Grgec won the elite women’s race at the MK5000 PB Special meet in Milton Keynes on Saturday night. She sat in a chasing pack until halfway through her 5,000m and then upped her pace to chase down athletes with faster previous times to claim a clear victory.

The second half of her race was spectacular. Having allowed what looked a significant head start to three highly-ranked athletes, Grgec ran her final 2,000m at least 10 seconds faster than they did and overtook them with a couple of laps to go. Her winning time was a big 5,000m PB of 15:51.54, which narrowly missed eclipsing the recently set club women’s record held by Phoebe Anderson (15:50.17).

There were two Herne Hill male athletes in the same race as each other earlier in the day in MK, when the weather was even hotter than at Grgec’s evening start time.

Jeff Cunningham (M40) clocked a big season’s best of 15:49.22, while M45 Ben Paviour, who turns 50 in November ran 16:15.23.

Katie Snowden races in the women’s 1,500m heats at the World Athletics Championship in Eugene, Oregon, this weekend.

Main Pic: Georgie Grgec