Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Gold medals in four relay events at Sutton Arena

Herne Hill Harriers’ young athletes claimed an impressive haul of County medals at the Surrey Combined Events, Relays, Steeplechase and Walks at Sutton Arena over the weekend, writes Geoff Jerwood.

Saturday saw four wins from four relays for the U13 and U15 girls teams, effectively a clean sweep of gold medals.

The U15 girls team of Lucy Wright, Orla Carroll, India Blakey and Lily Rose Brown set a new 4x300m club record with 2.53.85, which is also a championship best performance. This time ranks them third in the UK this year.

The U15 girls team of Ella Rennie, Brown Wright and Kelsea Martin set the eighth fastest time in the country this year with their 4x100m win in 50.09.

The U13 girls – Jasmine Nkoso, Niamh Noble, Pyale Wifa and Alessia Manna – won the 4x100m in 53.67. Their time is the seventh fastest in the UK. The fourth relay gold of the day came from U13s Nkoso, Manna, Seriah Watson and Sophie Wright in the 4x200m in 1.53.93.

Herne Hill took home one more set of relay team golds on Sunday, in the U20 women’s 4x100m relay, courtesy of Maleeka Royal-Howell, Saskia King, Jaydene Robinson and Niyah Costley. Their time of 47.90 on Sunday was only a fraction of a second outside the Harriers’ club record for this age group of 47.88, set by the same quartet when they raced in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games stadium as a prelude to a Diamond League meet earlier this summer.

Although claiming silver medals behind a team from Hercules Wimbledon, the U15 boys set a 4x300m relay club record for their age group. The team of Alex Wilson, Warren Wilson Jon Goldston and Fred Hake clocked 2.35.90 despite an inefficient baton handover between two of the runners. Herne Hill won a number of medals in the sprint and relays, including the senior men’s 4x100m and 4x400m.

Keeran Sriskandarajah won the U17 boys octathlon to further demonstrate his all-round athletic ability beyond being a highly ranked middle distance runner in the country in his age group. He recorded a PB points score over the eight events of 4,314. Brown and Nkoso both added third medals to their collections as the former was second in the U15 girls pentathlon and Nkoso won a bronze in the U13 girls pentathlon. Brown scored 2,618 points for her five events, with Nkoso scoring 2,150.

In the U17 women’s 1,500m steeplechase Izzy Perry won a silver medal with 5:47.90 and Rosalie Laban a bronze with 6:11.46.

Herne Hill were well represented at the London Big Half on Sunday morning, with 26 athletes running the half marathon distance from Tower Bridge to Greenwich in under two hours.

Carl Delaney placed 75th of the non-elite starting men in 73:14, with Angus Butler close behind in 88th with 73:33. Ryan Wilmott was third Herne Hill man in 114th with 74:42.

The first three Herne Hill women all ran PBs. Julia Wedmore added the half marathon distance to the string of recent PBs she has recorded at 1,500m, 3,000m, 5,000m and road 5km and 10km. She placed an excellent 29th of the non-elite women with her time of 84:24. Behind her were St George’s medical students Jenny Nandi in 75th 88:35 and Grace Leyland 86th in 89:37.

The full roll of honour of the 26 sub two hours athletes in fastest time order was Carl Delaney (73:14), Angus Butter (73:33), Ryan Willmott (74:42), Ben Millar (77:13), Robin Jones (77:54), Joffah Ratcliffe (79.30), Paul Calver (79:47), Andrew Dumbrell (81:31), Julia Wedmore (84:24), Pedro Henrique Pinto (84:42), James Brown (84:45), Jack Brotchie (85:40), Ross Brown (85:41), Tom Roberts (86:13), David Phillips (88:17), Jenny Nandi (88:35), Grace Leyland (89:37), Robert Nagorski (91:16), Hayley Shearman (96:07), Simon Evans (98:42), Robert Harrison (1:44.19), Honor Mewis (1:48.13), Ron Obodai (1:48.27), Bernard Muscat (1:48:52), Rosie Crampin (1:52.14) and Suzanne Swaine (1:52.42).

Main Pic: Izzy Perry (204) and Rosalie Laban (202)