Lily-Rose Brown took centre stage by winning a South of England indoor gold medal at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre on Sunday 2nd February.
Brown, 16, who now competes in the U20 women’s category rounded off a busy day with heat, semi-final and final in the best way by taking the 200m win in 25.15 seconds. Her time was just outside her PB, a strong effort at the end of three races.
Brown, right, said: “This is the most fun I’ve had at a championship. I’m beyond pleased with my result today. It was a tiring day but, nevertheless, everyone smashed it”.
More medals were claimed by Rikaion Smith, whose equal second place in the U20 men’s 60m final in a fast 6.86 earned him a silver and Maalik Adamson won a bronze in the in the same age group as he was third in the long jump with 6.84m.
Fred Hake, one of Brown’s training partners and club-mates, ran a big indoor PB in winning his heat in the U20 men’s 400m.
His clocking of 49.53 was an improvement of more than 1.5 seconds on his previous fastest on an indoor track. He then opted not to contest the final after feeling pain from a recent niggle with a view to saving his best for the following weekend’s England indoor championships in Sheffield.
The big domestic cross-country event of the weekend was the British Universities and Colleges Sports Championships in Cardiff. One of Herne Hill Harriers’ internationals is the Cambridge University team captain and led the women’s team to a historic victory around the muddy circuit.
Poppy Craig-McFeely, who represented Great Britain at the European Cross in Turkey in December, finished eighth in the women’s long course (8km) race in the Welsh capital as her team packed their four runners in the first dozen.
It was the first time in 25 years that the title has not been won by one of the “big two” – University of Birmingham or Loughborough.
Other Herne Hill athletes racing well were Olivia Stillman for Cardiff University, placing 44th, Grace Leyland for St George’s 49th and Kaitlin Hewitt for UCL 78th. Stillman raced for the hosts and was heavily involved in organising what was a successful event.
In the men’s long course race Tom O’Mahoney was 135th for St George’s and Harry Bell 174th for Durham University.
In road racing a handful competed at the Chichester 10km on Sunday morning. John Franklin was 67th in 34:10, followed in by PB runs for Calum Murphy 35:33, Tom Foster 36:23 Nick Mahoney 36:24 and Muhamud Haile 36:35. The latter was fourth among over 55s.
Geoff Jerwood