Photo – Lucinda White (left) finished 2nd in u20 Pole Vault at Southern Champs with 3.50m pb
Tonbridge Athletic Club members were competing in many locations at home and abroad over the weekend, with the most impressive coming from James West, in the USA, who produced a world class 3000 metres time.
West was competing for the first time since November and was in the 3000 metres at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix at Boston. With kilometre splits of 2.36.84, 2.37.37 and 2.28.68 he finished faster than almost the whole field to finish third in 7.42.89. The time is the second fastest by a British runner this year and moves him to ninth on the UK all time list. It is also a European Indoor Championships qualifying time and a Tonbridge club record. West is due to compete in the British Indoor Championships, at Birmingham on Sunday 19th February.
Also on international duty was Lewis Church, who placed 10th in a top-class indoor heptathlon in Tallinn, Estonia. Church scored 5486 points and was the top placed member of the England team. Although 101 points down on his personal best score, the performances still included some very respectable results. Amongst them was an indoor High Jump personal best of 2.00 metres and a 60 metres hurdles pb of 8.34.
Tonbridge athletes secured three silver medals at the South of England Indoor Championships, at Lee Valley, over the weekend. Ben Murphy finished 2nd in the senior men’s 800 metres final in 1.51.98, losing by just 0.23 seconds. Lucinda White scaled 3.50 metres in the under 20 women’s Pole Vault to equal her pb and win a silver medal. Georgia Baker, also an under 20, finished 2nd in the Long Jump with 5.18 metres.
Tonbridge AC had plenty of representatives in the Kent Schools Cross Country teams, who were competing at the South-East Inter Counties, at Ardingly, on Saturday. Jamie Macdonald had perhaps his finest race, winning the senior boys’ event over seven kilometres. For much of the race he was chasing the leader, Alex Sproston, from Sussex, but reeled him in on the final lap of three. Tom Claridge and George Hopkins also both ran well to finish strongly in 3rd and 6th, respectively. Other notable results came from Isabel Gowing (13th Junior Girls), Ewan Prendergast and Ben Catchpole (7th and 8th Junior Boys), Toby Bawtree (7th Inter Boys), plus Jess Poland and Ella Ayden (14th and 15thSenior Girls).
The British Universities and Colleges Cross Country Championships took place near Llanelli in Wales, on Saturday. The top Tonbridge finisher was Phoebe Barker 18th in the women’s race, where Lucy Thompson also had a good run in 37th. Miles Weatherseed was the best placed in the men’s A race, finishing 51st, whilst Matthew Taylor was 28th in the B race.
On the roads Dan Bradley ran 31.50 at the Chichester 10k on Sunday to finish 9th, whilst Helen Gaunt was first of the over 40 age group women in 36.49.
Chris Olley won a 10k in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco in 29.46 on Sunday.