Photo – Ian Crawley, European Masters Champion
Ian Crawley, from Tonbridge Athletic Club, won the over 60 men’s Pentathlon title at the European Masters Indoor Championships, last week. The championships took place in Torun, Poland, with the Pentathlon having twenty-four competitors, completing all five events in one day.
Crawley started impressively and ran a personal best of 10.44 in the 60 metres hurdles, which was the first event. He followed up with an indoor Long Jump pb of 4.85 metres, before a Shot Put of 11.03m. A High Jump clearance at 1.45m followed and then 1000 metres in 3.26.13, as the final event.
Consistency resulted in the overall gold medal, as in four of the five events Crawley was the second-best performer overall, whilst he was third in the High Jump.
His total points score of 3636 gave him a winning margin of 186 points, over the second-placed Spanish athlete.
Tonbridge 5th and Southern Road Relay
The Tonbridge Athletic Club men’s team finished 5th in the South of England 12 Stage Road Relay Championships, on Sunday, at Milton Keynes. After more than four hours of racing, Highgate won and were followed home by Cambridge, Hercules Wimbledon and Bedford.
Cameron Chambers ran the very competitive first leg, which was over 8,662 metres and came home 13th of the 45 starters, with a 26.51 clocking. He handed over to James Kingston, who was running the shorter lap of 4,987 metres, so a fraction short of five kilometres. Kingston is due to race at the World Cross Country Championships, in Serbia, on Saturday, but the selectors had agreed to him running a short stage at Milton Keynes.
Kingston showed that he is in excellent form and moved through the field to hand over in 2nd, having run 14.17. His split ended up as the fastest of the race on the short lap, with the second fastest being 28 seconds slower.
Michael Ellis ran 27.43 on the next long stage, followed by a good run from Harry Paton with 15.35 and Corey De’Ath with 27.05. Tonbridge were in 5th place, as Calum Laing ran 16.45 and slipped back one position.
Ben Murphy (26.41), Matthew Dubery (15.42), Ben Cole (25.56), George Marshall (15.46), Steve Strange (26.39) and Isaac Arnott (15.53) completed the team. Cole’s time was the 6th fastest long leg of the day.
As a result of the performance, the Tonbridge team qualified for the National Championships, which are at Sutton Coldfield.