After the mudlarks in the big cross country races in recent weeks, some of the track and field athletes of HHH took centre stage this weekend competing indoors as the club was represented at both the England Athletics National Age Group Championship in Birmingham and the Surrey Indoor Championship at Sutton Arena.
The undoubted star HHH performer was Jessie Knight, who won a bronze medal in the U20 women’s 400m at the National Indoor Arena in an event which HHH team mate Katie Snowden had to miss following a week of illness. On day one Jess knocked a chunk from her previous PB of 57.76 to qualify for the final in 2nd place in a very competitive heat with a fine time of 56.97. As good an effort that this barrier breaking run was, it was clear that Jess was going to have to improve her time again in the final as she still had one of the slowest PB’s of the 6 qualifiers. Improve she did, by a further half second to claim a fabulous bronze medal in a National final with a new PB of 56.47 that now ranks her 3rd in the UK U20 women’s 400m list in 2011 to date.
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HHH very nearly had a second medal winner in Birmingham as Louis Keen placed an excellent 4th in the U17 men’s shot, losing the bronze medal in the last round by 1cm! Louis performed well beyond expectations, recording 3 PB’s – adding 94cm to his previous PB with a best of 14.94m. Even Geoff Capes was impressed with Louis and says he has a lot of potential.
Also at the NIA, in the U20 men’s Triple Jump, our regular star man Julien Allwood was unable to record a valid jump, but Shola Olojo jumped 14.35m for 5th place, his first time over 14m in competition. In the U20 women’s pole vault Rosa Williams was 6th with a clearance of 3.10m, a height she repeated when placing 2nd at Sutton the following day.
At the Surrey Indoor Champs HHH athletes claimed 7 gold medals, 4 in the track 60m races and 3 in field events. Zanson Plummer recorded a Championship Best Performance of 7.24 in the U15 boys 60m final, while Vanessa La Fon and Funto Fabunmi-Alade won the U17 and U20 women’s races respectively and Ashley David Campbell became U20 men’s county 60m champion. Jerrel Clarke won the U20 men’s long jump, while our two senior gold medals were both claimed by women, Jennifer Honeyball in the pole vault and Sharon St Luce Boyce in the shot. Our best senior man was Robert Graham, who placed 2nd in the 60m, while in the senior women’s race Michelle Watson was very narrowly beaten into 2nd.
Results of the England Age Group Champs are at this link:
Results of the Surrey Indoor Champs are at these links: