Although now based at home in Australia, Herne Hill Harrier Chloe Tighe produced a performance on Saturday which was undoubtedly one of the best by any club member in 2019 with her fabulous silver medal in the Albie Thomas Mile women’s A race in Sydney which was also the Australian championship event.
Tighe is Australia’s current women’s 1500m champion, but it’s fair to say that Saturday’s field was far stronger than the one she defeated back in April as this was possibly the best domestic women’s middle distance field ever assembled in the country.
The start list boasted no less than eight women who have represented Australia in major championship competition and with five of these runners having substantially faster 800m personal bests than Tighe she knew she had to make her move before the bell for the final lap, especially having run only one speed session in building up for this race with bigger longer term targets in her plan.
Coached remotely from London to Sydney by Herne Hill’s Geoff Jerwood, she ran a very tactically astute race and was perfectly placed throughout. Tighe moved hard enough at the right time to take the sting out of the 800m specialists apart from World Championship and Commonwealth Games representative Georgia Griffith who was the race winner by one second as they clocked 4:36.29 and 4:37.34 respectively. Tighe will soon now decide whether she will aim for the Australia Olympics team for Tokyo 2020 at 1500m or 5000m.
Meanwhile in a very wet and muddy Lloyd Park in Croydon the Harriers men’s cross country team won a great set of bronze medals at the South of Thames 7.5 miles championship race.
The team were led home by under 20 Arlo Ludewick in what is his longest race to date. Currently home for Christmas from Manchester University, he placed around 13th in a strong field.
The six A team scoring medalists all finished in the first 29 with some amazing packing. Andrew Warburton placed 21st, followed in by Carl Delaney 26th, Lewis Laylee 27th, Brandon Dewar 28th and Alex Hobley 29th.
Simon Coombes only just missed team medals in 31st, but was the first athlete over 40 to finish at the age of 47, while Jeff Cunningham provided further strong backup placing 46th in a large field of 350 finishers, male and female as the men and women race together in these championships with their results scored separately.
Geoff Jerwood