Photo – James West after winning the British Championships 5000 metres
Tonbridge Athletic Club had seven athletes competing, at the British Championships, which also serve as trials for the Olympic Games. The event was held at Manchester, over the weekend, with all competitors having previously achieved qualifying marks either last year or this.
James West was in action on Sunday, defending the title that he won last year and up against a field that included Patrick Dever and Jack Rowe, who had achieved the Olympic qualifying standard of 13.05. These two pushed the pace hard towards the end of the race, after a steady start and at the bell, with a lap to go, there were five runners still in contention, including West. With less than 200 metres to go it came down to a sprint between Dever and West, with the latter pulling away in the home straight to win in 13.43.62, after a 54 second last 400 metres and 2.24 final kilometre.
This was West’s fourth British title in two years, adding to last year’s 5000 metres and the two wins indoors over 3000 metres. Olympic selection has eluded him, since his best time is 13.09, just four seconds outside the qualifying mark.
Kirsty-Anne Ebbage broke her own Tonbridge record in the Discus, with 48.45 metres to finish 8th, whilst Lucy Tallon, at just eighteen years old, competed in the 100 metres and 200 metres heats. Tallon broke her club, under 20 age group, record over the shorter distance with 11.92, whilst she was not far away from another, with 24.31 over 200 metres. Asha Root raced in the 400 metres, whilst Jack Higgins, Ben Murphy and Ben Gardiner did not progress beyond the heats of a very strong men’s 800 metres.
The Decathlon was not included in the main championships, but an International Combined Events meeting was held at Hexham, Northumberland across Saturday and Sunday. Lewis Church proved to be in top form, winning the competition and scoring 7852 points, to improve Harry Kendall’s Tonbridge record by just nine points. His competition started with a personal best of 11.26 over 100 metres and included plenty of other top marks, such as a Long Jump of 7.18m. The Olympic qualifying score is 8450 points, with only the top 24 in the World being invited, whilst Church is ranked around 50th currently. Steve Simmons produced a big personal best of 7038 points to finish 5th at Hexham and give Tonbridge AC three of the top ten Decathletes in the UK.
The Tonbridge AC men’s and women’s teams won the latest of their matches in the Southern Veterans League, which took place at Eltham, on Friday evening. Both now top their divisions, after four of six fixtures.
On Sunday, Jay Smith finished third in the North Downs 30km multi terrain race.