Herne Hill Harriers athletes travelled in mid July to Birmingham in force for the ESAA English Schools Championships in the Alexander Stadium, venue of the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Harriers had the largest representation within the London Schools team and athletes also competing for other county teams, notably Surrey Schools.
This huge event in the young athletes calendar is run with military precision and has often been called “the kids Olympics”. This is a great experience for everyone who takes part and all of our members who were selected for their teams are applauded. But to bring home a gold medal from such a big meeting is an awesome achievement and three Herne Hill athletes were able to celebrate this.
Indeed Ella Rennie claimed two gold medals. As well as winning the Intermediate Girls 200m final in a club U17 women’s record, she also ran the anchor leg for the London team who won the 4 x 100m relay along with two of her club mates, Princess Okama and Olivia Stockwell-Green.
Rennie won her 200m heat in 24.25, at the time her second fastest time but was then the next day the clear winner of the final with a time over half a second faster as her 23.71 with a wind of +0.2 m/s smashed her PB and her own Harriers age group record. This performance earned her selection for the England team who competed at the Schools International Athletics Board Championships the following Saturday in Derby where she placed second with 24.50 in her first international meet.
Surrey Schools athlete Fred Hake also claimed gold and a club age group record as he stormed the Senior Boys 400m in similar fashion. In winning his heat he sneaked inside his own Herne Hill U20 men’s record with a rapid 47.93 on the Friday. Then on the Saturday he smashed that performance with a huge win, clocking a superb 47.64 to revise his PB and record even further.
The third gold medal at these championships was won by Junior Girl Sasha Nolan who took the long jump title with a winning leap of 5.37m. Her mark was a few centimetres shy of her PB as was assisted by a wind over the limit for record purposes of +2.8m/s, but was sufficient to claim her first national title. One of the first to congratulate her was Harriers club women’s long jump record holder through the age groups, former European silver medalist and double Olympic Games finalist Jade Johnson.
Well done again to all of our athletes who earned selection for and competed at these prestigious championships.
Geoff Jerwood