Herne Hill Harriers’ hurdler Blade Ashby made a stunning breakthrough with an unexpected national gold medal at the England Athletics U20 and U23 Championship at Bedford on Sunday.
Ashby’s victory in the U23M 400m hurdles capped off a remarkable week for the Tooting-based club, with team-mates Marvin Popoola striking silver twice in the U20M 100m and 200m, and Aisha Naibe-Wey winning silver in the U23W 400m hurdles.
Katie Snowden also lowered her outdoors 800m club record just eight days after revising the 1500m mark. Harriers’ senior men, meanwhile, celebrated success on the road running circuit, by clinching team silver medals at the Surrey 10k road championships held at Ham.
Yet it was the brilliant Ashby that would steal the headlines. Having been allocated the outside lane despite being the third fastest qualifier from the Saturday heats, Ashby realised this meant he had to go out hard from the gun and he stormed to victory in a big personal best time of 50.93.
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