Herne Hill Harriers: Snowden runs in Paris Diamond League meet

Seven days after seeing her 2024 Olympic Games dream disappear when placing fifth at the British Championships in Manchester, Herne Hill Harriers’ Katie Snowden got herself back on the horse, so to speak, to line up in what proved to be the fastest female 1500m race in history so far at the Diamond League meet on Sunday.

The 30-year-old travelled to Paris, the city in which said Olympics will take place in the coming weeks with understandable doubts about her current racing form, especially among a start list which was one of the strongest ever assembled. That she was able to produce the third quickest time of her career in the French capital is testament to her character that has seen her run inside the Olympic A standard seven times since the time window opened this time last year.

The race was won by Kenyan Faith Kipyegon in a world record 3:49.04, with Laura Muir setting a new British record of 3:53.79 in third place. Snowden placed ninth in a race where the first 12 all ran below four minutes, her time of 3:58.13 being a season’s best by more than two seconds and sees her back among the sub-four club and third in this year’s UK rankings to date.

Paris was awash with top level athletes over the weekend as Saturday saw another World Athletics event, the FAST5000 races in the same On Running series as the Highgate Night of 10000 PBs back in May. The French edition is organised by a Herne Hill Harrier Simon Messenger and delivered some world class 5000m performances.

New Zealand international Georgie Grgec ran the second best 5000m track time by a Herne Hill athlete with a good PB run. She was second in the women’s B race after leading to push the pace on towards the closing stages. Her time of 15:40.94 has only ever been bettered among Harriers athletes by Phoebe Anderson in the club all time rankings, although Snowden has run a faster time than both on the roads.

Others from the club ran season’s best times as Aussie Brandon Dewar clocked 14:57.38 placing fifth in his race and M40 Jeff Cunningham ran 15:48.97 for seventh place in the first 5000m race on the programme.

At home the Herne Hill National Athletics League (NAL) Championship East Division team of men and women competed in Stevenage. Having finished sixth of six teams in the first match and fifth in the second, it was crucial to avoid another sixth placing.

Final match scores are still in production and with team positions between second and fifth quite close the likelihood is either a fourth or fifth place finish which would avoid going into a relegation paper match at the end of the season. There is one further fixture in early August, but this is a cup competition for which the result does not contribute to the divisional league standings.

A combination of strong events in many where athletes were available and empty spaces where they were not has been a feature of the NAL season and has meant overall match scores for the club have not been representative of the quality of many of the individuals. But it is a team competition and a full team across the piece is a key to success.

This fixture was Herne Hill’s best so far, though and a number of event wins were secured. Our international sprint star Kristal Ama-Awuah turned out to help her team and as part of her preparation for the upcoming England Athletics Championships and duly won the women’s A string 100m and 200m in 12.10 and 24.73. Equally impressive and emphatic was double B string winner, under 17 club record holder Ella Rennie with 12.50 and 25.19

The Herne Hill female middle distance squad take inspiration from the high level exploits of Snowden, Grgec and Anderson and were largely dominant in their events.

Sophie Tooley won both the A string 800m and 1500m in 2:13.84 and 4:41.14. Lucy Jones won the B 800m in 2:15.19 and was third in the B 400m in 62.50, the latter for some under distance speed work as well as helping the team cause.

Jenny Nandi was third in the A 5000m in 18:12.30 ahead of B string winner Megan Gildea who clocked 18:21.70. Gildea then also won the both B 1500m in 4:55.45 in what was for her an “optional extra” to fill up the team in this event. The women’s 1500m steeplechase saw two very promising under 17s Maeve Minielly, second in the A string in a PB 5:30.72 and Izzy Perry winning the B string.

Other event winners were the men’s 4 x 100m sprint relay team of Rajay Robinson, Shanpy Sealy, Byron Robinson and Rikaion Smith and a returning Mike Cummings in the men’s B string 1500m in 4:07.39 on a very promising day for the Herne Hill flagship league team.