British Athletics have in the past few days announced their teams for two major age group championships and each of the teams include an athlete from Herne Hill Harriers. The Herne Hill A-team of Charlotte Alexander and Kristal Awuah have gained their first full international selections for British teams after placing first among athletes in theire respective age groups at the recent England Under 20 Championship at Bedford International Stadium.
First Alexander, age 16, was named last Friday in the British team for the second European Athletics Under 18 Championships taking place between 5-8 July in Gyor, Hungary. Alexander had finished an excellent fourth overall against older athletes in the Under 20 women’s 3000m at Bedford with a season’s best and qualifying time of 9.38.59.
Alexander is now rapidly rediscovering the form that last year saw her crowned as England Under 17 women’s and UK School Games 3000m champion as well as placing second in both the English Schools and SIAB Schools Home International Championships in the Intermediate Girls age group and this step up into a Great Britain team is an excellent opportunity at a championship were she is highly ranked.
18 year old Awuah had won the Under 20 women’s 100m at the England Championship and having also clocked the required qualifying time on several occasions was effectively an automatic selection for the British junior team for the World Junior Championships in Tampere, Finland from 10-15 July. Awuah is currently easily on top of the UK Under 20 women’s rankings at 100m and third on the 200m list for 2018 to date and is also among the top ten on the UK all-time list for this age group.
Awuah, who is selected to race at both 100m and the 4 x 100m relay in Tampere scored a good victory in her Great Britain Juniors debut over the weekend in Mannheim, Germany, where she clocked a good 11.47 for 100m against a small headwind of 0.3 metres per second. This was actually the first time Awuah has competed outside of the UK and will have provided invaluable experience as well as additional confidence going into the World Junior Championship.
At home Herne Hill Harriers Southern Athletics League team placed second at Tooting Bec in their third fixture of the season. Having won the first two, Harriers were unable to match the top team in the division Bexley, who scored a comfortable win.
Middle distance athlete Andrew Clarke front ran to victory over 800m at Tooting in 1.58.9 just a few days after he had run 1500m in under four minutes for the first time at a British Milers Club meeting at Eltham where he recorded 3.59.46. Mike Cummings ran 1.57.52 over 800m at the Eltham BMC races and then travelled up to Loughborough for the BMC Grand Prix races on Saturday evening where he was just outside his season’s best for 1500m with his 3.57.34.
Two athletes who did come home from Loughborough with season’s best times were 18 year old Ella Newton, who ran a good 4.34.37 for 1500m and Fiona de Mauny, whose 2.11.84 was a faster 800m time than when she won the European Masters Indoor W35 title in March in Madrid.