Photo – James West winning the British Indoor 3000 metres title (photo courtesy of James Rhodes)
James West, from Tonbridge Athletic Club, won the 3000 metres at the British Indoor Championships, on Sunday and as a result gained selection for the GB team for the European Championships.
West went into the championships, having already run the European qualifying time, but needed to finish in the top two, in order to secure selection for the British team. The race developed at a good strong pace, but really started to speed up over the final kilometre, with West amongst seven athletes at the front at that stage. It was down to five with 600 metres to go and West hit the front with 300 metres to go and won in 7.49.78, just over a second clear of Welshman Osian Perrin. Alasdair Kinloch from Tonbridge AC placed 9th in 8.17.74.
West will now compete at the European Indoor Championships, with are scheduled to take place in Instanbul, between 2nd and 5th March.
Also, performing well at the British Indoor Championships was Ben Murphy, who ran an indoor personal best of 1.49.49 to finish second in his heat on Saturday, although in Sunday’s final he could only place 6th in 1.50.55.
At the Belgian Championships, Anne-Sophie Bremans set a Tonbridge AC women’s indoor 400 metres record of 56.23. Bremans already held the under 17 and 20 marks, but this time improved Asha Root’s outright record by 0.17 seconds.
On Sunday, Dan Bradley finished 3rd at the Tunbridge Wells Half Marathon in 71.21 and with Sean Molloy (4th in 71.53) and Neil McClements (5th in 71.58) secured the men’s team win.