Three of Herne Hill Harriers’ brightest stars rounded off their excellent track campaigns with strong final performances over the weekend, writes Geoff Jerwood.
Katie Snowden was in her last racing action of a long and largely successful series of races at the very top level, capping off her fine summer by placing sixth in a strong women’s one-mile field at the World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meet in Zagreb, Croatia on Sunday.
The Balham runner’s time of 4:25.72 was a marginal PB, set in 2017, and is a new Herne Hill club senior women’s record for the mile.
It also places Snowden at the top of the women’s one-mile track rankings in the UK for 2022. In another world-class field, this was a good follow up to her recent sub two minutes landmark performance over 800m in Poland and her fabulous fourth place in the European Athletics Championship 1,500m final in Munich.
Snowden will now take a short ‘break’ during which she will just run easy, before aiming at a big winter training build up towards next year’s major championship targets.
Rising starlet Lily-Rose Brown was crowned as the Southern Inter-County 300m champion in the U15 girls age group at the South of England U15/U17 Inter-Counties Championships at Horspath.
Her time of 40.13 ensured that she finished her U15 track season still ranked number one in the UK at 300m with her earlier summer PB of 39.11. This was also the second fastest of all time in this age group in the UK and a Harriers club record.
Brown’s performances this season also included a silver medal at the English Schools Championship and have provided ample demonstration of her very exciting potential.
Not to be outdone, Fred Hake was also a good winner of the U15 boys 300m final in 37.06 after a heat win in 37.89. Hake ends an excellent track season ranked at the top of the UK under 15 boys 400m list with 51.91.
Ella Rennie was on top of the medals podium twice on Saturday as she won the U15 girls 100m final in 12.38, having won her heat in 12.37, then after also winning her 200m heat she took the win in that final too in 25.39.
Dante Clarke finished fourth in the U17 men’s high jump with 1.75m and second in the 100m hurdles heats in 14.01, then claimed another medal for the Surrey team, placing third in the final of the latter, clocking 14.0.
Others representing their county were Alex Abebrese, fourth in the U17 men’s shot with 13.48m and Sheriff Silly with 5.90m to finish third in the U15 boys long jump.
Julia Wedmore ran 39:09 at the Larkfield 10km in Kent, placing sixth female on the day as she recorded another in a succession of strong race performances.
Geoff Jerwood