Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Katie Snowden in loaded heat as she finished 10th in World Athletics Championships’ 1,500m semi final

Herne Hill Harrier Katie Snowden raced for Great Britain on both Friday and Saturday in Eugene, Oregon in the World Athletics Championships women’s 1,500m.

The Balham athlete was drawn in a disproportionately loaded heat on Friday which was always going to make qualification for Saturday’s semi-final very tough, writes Geoff Jerwood.

Such was the depth of quality in this second of the three heats, a battling 10th place still saw her into the next round as one of the fastest six non-automatic qualifiers.

Her time of 4:06.92 was faster than the winning time in heat one and this meant that following last year’s semi-final qualification at the Tokyo Olympics she now also has World semi-finalist to her name.

Her journey at the championships ended the following evening as, despite a kinder draw, Snowden placed 10th in a big race for the second time in two days, this time clocking 4:08.29.

Racing against the best athletes in the world can require the best of luck, which has not really been forthcoming.

The last weeks leading into this meeting had been far from ideal with an injury in early June followed by contracting Covid later in the month. Snowden’s achievement against this backdrop in particular is immense.

Snowden said: “I’m frustrated as I still had high expectations for myself and I’m sad that I couldn’t give my best here when it was needed.

“I’m glad there’s still plenty of the season left to do better and perform how I know I can”.

Her next opportunity will be racing for England in the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in early August.

Snowden will now train at home to top up the physical benefits which will have been derived from having raced twice as many times in two days in Eugene as she had been able to in the previous six weeks before her arrival there.

She also takes away some more valuable major championship experience to put to good use in the upcoming championships.

Meanwhile in a very sunny South London the official reopening took place for the newly resurfaced and refurbished Tooting Bec Athletics Track and Gym track. This was in conjunction with a Southern Athletics League match.

The combined Herne Hill men and women’s team placed second behind Kent AC.

Men’s A string winners included Isaac Ogunlade (400m 49.47), U20 Oliver Hector (110m hurdles 17.06 and 400m hurdles 52.55 plus both the 4 x 100m and 4 x 400m relay teams). U17 Khalil Sesay won the B string 200m in 22.83, while other B winners were U17 Keeran Sriskandarajah (400m 51.71), M45 Ben Paviour (5,000m 16:18.07) and 69-year-old Andy Lea Gerrard (hammer 14.21m).

Julia Wedmore won the women’s A string 3,000m in 10.57.74 with Kaitlin Hewitt claiming the B string.

There was a win double in the 2,000m steeplechase, with U17s Rosalie Laban first in the A with 8:02.18 and Izzy Peery the B with 8:39.33.

Laban had earlier won the A 400m hurdles. Jaydine Robinson and Joyce Kalombo were winners of the A and B long jump with 5.35m and 4.86m respectively.

Robinson also won the B 100m in 12.98 and Kalombo the B 200m in 26.79.

U17 Victoria Alicante-King won the A shot with 8.40m and another U17 Ye Sung Park the A javelin with 21.05m.

Harriers’ 4x100m sprint relay team also took the win.

Andrew Warburton was sixth in 32:25 at the Sri Chinmoy 10km road race on Saturday morning in Battersea Park.

Max Rose was 20th with 33:55, followed in by M40 Paul Calver (41st in 35:00), Seve Loudon (45th in 35:29) and Jonathan Ratcliffe, first M50 in 36:36.