Herne Hill Harrier Jasmine Nkoso won the South of England Indoor Athletics U15 girls Pentathlon Event with a new personal best points score of 3247 on Sunday at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre. Nkoso broke her own previous club record of 3191 points, set in September 2023 at the National English School Pentathlon at Bedford International Stadium.
Her performance included two personal bests, in the 60m hurdles with a time of 9.63s and 5.16m in the long jump. This competition was in preparation for her first Indoor International Pentathlon, in which she will be representing England Schools against the Home Countries in Cardiff on 2nd December.
Well done Jasmine and good luck in Cardiff. Coach: Anthony Mayhew
Saturday witnessed a good seventh place for Herne Hill’s Saskia Millard at the British Athletics Liverpool Cross Challenge women’s short course race which acted as the trial for the European Cross GB relay team. Millard positioned herself well throughout, but didn’t quite have the legs in the closing stages to hang onto a podium place.
There was also a very fine run for Caspian Holmes in Liverpool placing 24th in the Under 15 boys race against many of the best in the country as he starts to cut his teeth at the highest domestic level.
Closer to home Harriers women won team bronze medals for the second consecutive Saturday, this time at the South of Thames five miles cross country championships in Beckenham Place Park. The medal winning A team was Nikki Sturzaker 11th and first W50, W40 Karen Ellison 12th, Shannon Sinclair 17th and Annabelle Acres claiming her first medal closing the team in 26th.
There was good backup from Sue Swaine 27th, Alex Marginean 46th, Jess Winfield 52nd, Alex Fedina 64th, Alison Beck 74th and Sarah Allen 78th. The first four among these runners formed the B team who were tenth women’s team overall and third among B teams.
In addition to ten women turning out there were also nine men, with the first four across the line forming the A team. This team placed tenth overall and sixth of the A teams and included two of the first three under 20 men. The scorers were Robin Bebbington 22nd and second U20, Fintan Kearney 31st and Sam Maloney 37th and third U20 and Stephen McLeod 71st.
The B team was Chris Speed 76th, Tom Foster 80th, Leon Kong 116th and Simon Evans 135th, with the men’s representation closed out by Ian Strong in 192nd. The first eight of these men finished sixth in the championship for teams of eight.
Geoff Jerwood
link to the Lee Valley Athletics Centre is https://www.better.org.uk/leisure-centre/lee-valley/athletics-centre