Photo above – Josh Prendergast
Prendergast sets mile mark
Josh Prendergast of Tonbridge Athletic Club set a new club under 15 boys’ 1 mile record on Saturday of 4.37.76, improving George Duggan’s previous time from 2011, by just 0.04 seconds. Prendergast won the race, at the Dagenham open meeting, by a huge margin, having to front run the entire distance, as he aimed at a fast time. The time completes a great spell of performances for Prendergast as he has also set marks at 800m, 1500m and 3000m that rank in the UK’s top ten for the age group this year.
Also racing well at Dagenham, Harrison Fraser (under 15) won a 1500 metres race with a new personal best of 4.49.90, whilst in the same race James Petrie (under 13) improved his own time significantly with 4.56.04. Over 3000 metres, Lily Slack (under 15) made her debut at the distance winning in 10.20.69, which ranks her 6th in the UK this year, in the age group.
It has been an extremely challenging year for athletes, but most notably for multi-eventers, with difficult training conditions and hardly any competitions taking place. It has been so difficult that just eight UK athletes have registered a Decathlon score in 2020. Amongst them now and ranked 3rd is Harry Kendall, after scoring 6340 points at the Yeovil Combined Events meeting, in awful conditions, across Saturday and Sunday.
Samantha Stubbs also won at Yeovil, scoring 4161 points in the under 17 women’s Heptathlon, as Georgia Baker and Freya Ridge finished 2nd and 3rd with personal best scores of 3688 and 3634, respectively.
At Lewes, in extremely windy and wet conditions on Sunday, Fenton Davoren (under 17) made his debut over 3000 metres and ran 9.32.66, gaining 2nd in the Sussex Championship. Olivia Breed (under 15) had her first track race for sixteen months and ran 5.11.26 for 1500 metres.
The Hastings Seafront 10km took place on Sunday, with significant Covid guidelines, including entrants setting off at ten second intervals, with results based on the electronic timings recorded. Jacqui O’Reilly won the women’s competition in 43.03 and Dan Bradley was 2nd in the men’s event in 32.54, as seventy competitors took part.
The London Marathon was cancelled as a mass participation event this year, due to the virus pandemic, but entrants were given the opportunity to run a ‘virtual’ marathon from near home, over a course of their choosing. Personal GPS watches recorded the time and distance and four Tonbridge AC runners took part. Emma Hollands ran 3.26, Penny Pilbeam 3.40, James Winnifrith 3.49 and Eva Kolivoskova-Martin 4.40.
Results from Dagenham –http://justiming.co.uk/liveresults/2020/bftta3.10/schedule.html
Results from Yeovil – https://www.thepowerof10.info/results/results.aspx?meetingid=408119
Results from Lewes –http://justiming.co.uk/liveresults/2020/sussex4.10/schedule.html
Results from Hastings 10k –http://results.netiming.co.uk/Results.aspx?CId=20008&RId=240
Results from Virtual London Marathon –http://results.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com/2020/?pid=search&pidp=results_nav