Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Phoebe Anderson gets GB call-up for European U20 Championships

BY GEOFF JERWOOD

Phoebe Anderson has been selected for the Great Britain Juniors team for the European Athletics U20 Championships in Tallinn, Estonia this month.

Anderson’s Herne Hill middle distance club-mate Katie Snowden is preparing to compete at the Tokyo Olympics at the beginning of August while U23 sprinter Kristal Awuah headed to Tallinn on Tuesday.

The U23 age group began yesterday, before the U20s compete at the same venue from July 15-18.
Anderson is ranked second in the UK and holds the club’s U20 women’s record at 5,000m, the distance she will contest in Estonia. She placed second at the trial race, held within the British Milers Club Grand Prix meeting at Watford last month.

More recently she placed third with a PB in an British U20 Championship women’s 3,000m race at the Olympic Trials meeting in Manchester.

Her inclusion in the Team GB squad is reward for the hard work that she and her coach Wayne Vinton have put in to bring her up to this level of competition -Tallinn will be her first major championship experience.

Harriers competed in their second National Athletics League fixture at the Weir Archer Athletics & Fitness Centre at Kingsmeadow last weekend.

Herne Hill enjoyed event wins in some middle distance events and also a double first in the men’s 400m hurdles, the first team scoring track race of the afternoon. Isaac Ogunlade won the A string in this race in 54.98, with U20 Oliver Hector taking the B string in 61.33, in his first race over the barriers.

The 800m runners swept the board with Arlo Ludewick, Mike Cummings, Nicole Montgomery and Fiona de Mauny winning their A and B strings respectively.

Noah Armitage-Hookes won the men’s A string 1,500m with a PB of 4:01.34 with Joe Fenwick first in the B string. Like Ludewick, Armitage-Hookes ran an impressive final lap covered in very close to 60 seconds.

Sarah Grover was second in the A string and de Mauny was first in the B version to form a good women’s 1,500m combo. De Mauny also placed second in the 400m A string (60.42)

Brandon Dewar ran 16:10.41 and Billy Herklots 17:42.92 in the men’s 5,000m, placing third A and first B respectively. Natasha Lodge won what was effectively a 3,000m time trial in 11:10.40 before De Mauny, Grover, Lodge, Ludewick, Dewar, Ogulade and Hector were all part of the 4x400m relay teams, along with sprinter Charmaine Grant.

Gaby Reynolds ran the Kenley Summer 10km on Sunday and clocked 38:04 to place third on the ladies podium and 11th overall over an undulating course on the North Downs.

Alexandra Brown ran 2:14 in the 800m in the Oxford University v Cambridge University Inter Varsity Meeting at the famous Iffley Road Bannister four-minute mile circuit on Sunday. She was behind Louise Shanahan, who was recently named in the Ireland team for the Tokyo Olympics.

Brown then narrowly held off a strong final charge from the same top-class athlete at the end of a very exciting 4x400m relay between the two universities.

PICTURE: JAMES RHODES