After her final 100m race of the season at the Wanda Diamond League in Doha one weekend, Herne Hill Harriers’ Kristal Awuah signed off on her 200m racing a week later win a fine race win on Saturday at the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi in Kenya.
Already sat on top of the British women’s 200m rankings, Awuah extended her advantage as she improved her personal best time to 23.05 seconds in a close race against an international field. Awuah revised her own Harriers club senior women’s record into a headwind of -0.7 metres per second at an altitude of around 1,750m.
Awuah rounded off a successful season in Africa, close to her family roots at the start of Black History Month in the UK and will soon begin her winter preparations for a big year in 2021. Her latest club record was one of a series of new marks set by senior and under 20 women this season.
Locally there was more action at Tooting Bec with another open track meeting, this week hosted by Herne Hill Harriers. The feature event was the Stan Allen Mile races with the home club’s Mike Cummings running home a very strong winner of the main race in 4:24.47. A close scrap for third and fourth place saw Under 20 Dylan Sweet just ahead of Jack Dickenson as they recorded 4:33.13 and 4:33.79 respectively.
In the second mile race James Stocker and Joe Elliott were engaged in a similar battle for the same finishing positions as they ran 4:53.42 and 4:53.89.
Young athletes from the club again turned out in big numbers and there was a good run from Under 13 Orla Wright 5:35.28 in race four, then Under 15s Alex Jack and Harry Bell were first and second in the fifth of the eight one mile races in 5:20.24 and 5:25.94, while in the next race Sophie Jack (U13) ran 5:55.14.
Rosalie Laban (U15) clocked 5:53.34 to place second in the seventh race in a series that saw a total of 86 finishers in an annual event in memory of lifelong club coach and mentor Stan Allen, whose daughter W55 athlete Sarah ran 7:56.41 in the final mile race.
The field events saw very good throws by Alex Abrebrese which ranks second in the UK U15 boys shot rankings and Victoria Alicante King whose performance puts her eighth in the national U15 girls rankings this year.
The 3000m races saw Andrew Grigg timed at 9:21.72 for third in the first race, then later M55 Gary Ironmonger in the third race occupied the same finishing position with 10:06.85. Club President M55 Keith Newton was eighth in 10:39.64 and Julia Wedmore placed tenth in 11:01.42, then Under 15 Girl Izzy Perry ran a PB 11:06.87 in the next race.
There were few Herne Hill athletes in the 100m, but Khelya Ekwe (U15G) ran 13.70 and Yunas Amoo-Gottfried (U13B) 15.69. In the 800m races Zac Crowther (U15), Harvey Kande (U17) and Keeran Sriskandarajah (U15) ran times of 2:02.19, 2:06.96 and 2:07.86 respectively.
A number of Harriers ran in the Virtual London Marathon in their own time, the fastest of these was Nick Bester who ran his best time so far for the distance with an excellent 2:28.35, a very good run on a very wet Sunday.
Geoff Jerwood