Streatham sprinter Kristal Awuah sped to the top of the UK women’s 200m rankings for 2020 over the weekend as she broke her own Herne Hill Harriers club senior women’s record with her clocking of 23.20 seconds.
Racing at the Gouden Spike meeting in Leiden in the Netherlands on Saturday against an unhelpful -1.2 metres per second headwind Awuah improved her previous best time from last year by four hundredths of a second in winning her race and move up from second to first on the British list this year.
At the same meeting Awuah also placed second over 100m in 11.59, but earlier in the week on Tuesday in Bellinzona in Switzerland she ran her fastest 100m time of the year with 11.33 seconds in a race where she also placed second in a good international field. This performance cemented her third place GB ranking at the shorter sprint event.
Awuah now has high hopes for 2021 and the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games where she could potentially qualify for the British team at 100m, 200m and the 4 x 100m relay.
Much more locally there was a very good quality track meeting in Battersea Park on Tuesday. The Night of Fifteen 1500s was co-hosted by Belgrave Harriers and Herne Hill Harriers and attracted some highly ranked athletes as well as providing a racing opportunity for some local club runners.
A good number of Herne Hill athletes raced and the club supplied a few race winners, all over the 1500m race distance.
Fraser Hagell ran a PB 4:52.90, then a couple of races later Jonny Whittall and Sarah Grover swapped the lead before Whittall prevailed with a PB 4:36.25 with Grover’s 4:37.84 backing up her slightly faster run at Aldershot last week. Behind them in fourth Robin Jones clocked 4:39.80 in a rare outing over 1500m.
Jeff Cunningham won race number seven if the evening in 4:22.67, then Matt Cartwright ran a PB 4:21.83 coming third in the next race.
The red and black vests chalked up another win with Jack Dickenson running another PB after the previous Saturday at Coulsdon, this time 4:13.35.
Race eleven featured four Harriers as Nick Dewar was second in 3:55.40, Mike Cummings fourth in 3:57.03 for a club M35 record, Brandon Dewar seventh in 4:01.33 and Angus Butler was eighth in 4:05.13 to add an inaugural PB for him at this distance to the work he put into the organisation of an exciting meeting.
Finally Arlo Ludewick’s 3:51.12 not only secured an exciting race win, but lowered his previous best time down from 4:03. Not a bad way to break four minutes for the first time! Ludewick then followed this up with another superb victory on Saturday. This time it was a PB 1:55.05 for 800m at the Trafford Open Series in Manchester.
Also on Saturday one of Herne Hill’s newest members raced at the RunThrough 10km road race in the London Olympic Park and also returned a very good PB, as Jenna Wilkinson took almost a minute off her previous best as first woman with 38:44.
Geoff Jerwood