Last Friday a highlight for Herne Hill Harriers in the official announcement of the Great Britain team for the European Athletics Championship was the inclusion of middle distance international Katie Snowden in the women’s 1500m. These championships will take place in Munich, Germany between 15th and 21st August.
Snowden has now been selected for three major championship teams out of three in the summer of 2022, first the World Championship in Oregon, then the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and now the Europeans in Munich to complete a full set.
More immediately on Snowden’s busy racing season calendar is to race for England at this week’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham with her 1500m heat this Friday, 5th August.
In local club racing action Julia Wedmore smashed her road 5km PB by 32 seconds at the Serpentine Running Club Last Friday of the Month 5km road race. Like Snowden, Wedmore is a former JAGS pupil and on Friday she produced a stunning 17:49 to finish first female by over two minutes on the day for a big breakthrough.
Harriers also had first M55 as Jonathan Ratcliffe ran a season’s best of 17:52 and first M60 as Mike Boyle clocked a good 19:06.
Earlier in the week Dan Shaw was sixth in the Trafford Grand Prix 1500m on Tuesday evening with 4:02.03 and Andrew Warburton was 15th in the final 1500m race of the night at the Watford Open Graded Meeting on Wednesday with 4;05.40.
At the Veterans AC 5000m track championship in Wimbledon Park on Wednesday M40 Paul Calver clocked 16:49.83 and prolific racer Ratcliffe ran 18:16.94.
The recently resurfaced and reopened Tooting Bec Athletics Track hosted the younger age groups of the UKA Youth Development League on Saturday with the Herne Hill team of under 13 and under 15 boys and girls taking a good match win on the day.
Results were unavailable at the time of publishing but the match winning margin was probably around 30 points. Unfortunately for Harriers in the overall season they missed out on promotion on cumulative points score at the end of an exciting campaign without a home track base for most of it.
Geoff Jerwood