The women’s indoor 400 metres at Tonbridge Athletic Club is proving to be one of the most competitive events of the season so far, with fast times being recorded by a few athletes. This continued at the weekend when Asha Root improved her own club record on Sunday, at the British Universities Championships, at Sheffield.
Root ran 56.40 in the semi-finals of the championships, improving her previous record of 57.16, before going on to finish 6th in the final. By coincidence, within an hour of Root’s performance, Anne-Sophie Bremans was competing at the Belgian under 18 championships, where she finished 2nd in the final. Bremans, just two days short of her sixteenth birthday, ran 56.54, which broke her own Tonbridge AC under 17 women’s record and also improved the under 20 age group mark.
Also competing at the British Universities Championships, Simon Coppard initially finished 2nd in the men’s 1500 metres final on Sunday, having qualified via Saturday’s heat and semi-final. However, Coppard was disqualified for stepping inside the track on more than one occasion during the final. He will hope to bounce back at this coming weekend’s UK Indoor Championships, where he is amongst a number of Tonbridge members who have qualified for the event. Ben Murphy and Jordan Chambers are due to race over 800 metres, Coppard over 1500 metres, whilst James West and Alasdair Kinloch go in the 3000 metres. Then multi-eventers Lewis Church and Harry Kendall are due to compete in the Heptathlon. The championships are being televised on BBC television across the weekend.
The largest running event locally at the weekend was the Tunbridge Wells Half Marathon, although Tonbridge had few of their faster members competing, since many will be racing in this coming Saturday’s National Cross Country Championships. However, the Tonbridge women’s squad performed admirably, with Helen Gaunt winning in 83.22, with Ellie Baxter 2nd in 87.34 and Sophie Preston 4th in 90.00. Unfortunately, for Preston, she had taken a wrong turn, whilst leading the women’s race, about three miles from the finish.
This coming weekend is a significant one for Tonbridge Athletic Club, with the National Cross Country Championships taking place at Parliament Hill Fields, North London and the British Indoor Championships at Birmingham.