Herne Hill Harriers athletes took home medals from the recent South of England Under 13, Under 15 and Under 17 Indoor Championship at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre.
Solomon Thompson Moodley claimed a place at the top of both the podium and also the early year UK Under 15 boys high jump ranking list with a PB leap of 1.72m. His winning margin on the day was an impressive 7cm over his closest rival for his gold medal performance.
Four silver medals were won by Harriers members. Ella Rennie was second in the Under 15 girls 200m final, clocking 26.62 after a season’s best 26.45 when winning her semi-final earlier in the day. Alexander Abebrese was runner up in the Under 17 men’s shot with 12.79m which was also a season’s best.
Keeran Sriskandarajah ran the fastest time of the day in the Under 17 men’s 800m in winning his heat in 1:58.55, but was then beaten into second place in the final as he clocked 2:01.38. The race winner is currenly ranked second in the UK for the age group with Sriskandarajah’s heat time third on this list. Sasha Nolan was second in the Under 13 girls long jump with a PB 4.44m.
Fred Hake missed out on a medal by the narrowest of margins in the Under 17 men’s 400m, placing fourth in 52.10, one hundredth of a second behind the bronze medallist. Zico Blake was also fourth in his event with 5.56m in the Under 15 boys long jump.
In cross country action over the weekend recently crowned Surrey Under 20 women’s champion Poppy Craig-McFeely competed in her first international event, placing 11th in her age group at the Lotto Cross Cup de Hannut in Belgium. With a strong performance on a snow covered course she was the second finisher in the South of England team, gaining invaluable oversea’s racing experience in the lead up to this coming weekend’s Southern Championship in Beckenham.
Another top level overseas performance came in the USA where Ore Adamson recorded a PB triple jump of 12.65m to move to second on the UK rankings for the year to date. At the Dr.Martin Luther King Jr Collegiate Invitational meet in Albuquerque, New Mexico Under 23 athlete Adamson, a student at Texas San Antonio University also jumped 6.07m in the long jump and is looking to be in her best ever form.
There was more indoor success as Annabel Hobday ran a big PB for 1500m clocking 4:31.64 at the Cardiff Met Grand Prix behind international Jenny Nesbitt. Hobday’s time qualifies her to be invited to race at next month’s UK Indoor Championship in Birmingham.
At the same meeting Saskia Millard showed good recovery from recent illnerss as she won the women’s 3000m race by more than ten seconds in a time of 9:29.34.
At the London Indoor Games at Lee Valley M35 Mike Cummings ran 2:00.25 in his first 800m race of the year.
The Veterans AC Cross Country Championships held on Wimbledon Common saw a big turnout of eighteen Harriers members. These included a good number of individual medal winners. Oliver Morrison, sixth overall was third M45, Jonathan Ratcliffe second M55 and Mike Boyle first M60.
Nikki Sturzaker claimed the W45 gold medal and a trophy for finishing first female overall in the race. Vic Maughn third M60, Waldy Pauzers first M65, Alexandra Marginean second W35 and Gillian Wheeldon 3rd W60 completed the list of Herne Hill medal winners on the day.
The next day on a freezing Sunday morning Ratcliffe followed up his cross country exploits by placing ninth M50-59 at the Farnborough Half Marathon with 80:46.
Also in half marathon action, Northern Ireland based Jessica Craig got her racing year off to a strong start as she clocked a superb PB of 74:29 in Spain at the Mitja Marató Internacional Vila de Santa Pola. This run sees her third in the early year national women’s ranking list for the distance.
Geoff Jerwood