Photo – Julian Rendall has completed all six World Major Marathons
Jack Higgins and James West will be in the Great Britain team competing at the European Indoor Athletics Championships this coming weekend, which is being held in Apeldoorn, in the Netherlands.
West had gained automatic selection, after placing second in the 3000 metres, at the UK Indoor Championships, having already run the European qualifying time previously. Higgins finished second over 800 metres at the UK Championships, but had to wait for the European rankings to be updated to find out whether he was in the top thirty who compete, so that he could be selected.
Higgins will be making his Great Britain debut in the heats on Friday morning, whilst West competes in his event heats on Saturday morning.
At the weekend, there were a couple of distance running wins for Tonbridge athletes. Steve Strange won the Dartford Half Marathon in 70.22, as part of his build up towards a marathon debut. Jake Greenwood finished third in 75.23, improving by over six minutes from his time a year ago. Jamie Macdonald, running for Exeter University won the Westward Cross Country League fixture at Redruth, in Cornwall.
Julian Rendall completed the full set of World Marathon Majors, when he ran the Tokyo event, on Sunday, in 2.47.48. He had previously competed at the other five events, held in London, New York, Boston, Chicago and Berlin.
On Thursday evening, Verity Hopkins finished an excellent fifth in the 5km road race, in Battersea Park, recording a new personal best of 16.08. James Crombie won one of the earlier races, also with a pb time of 14.59.
Emily Ghose and Grazia Manzotti finished 4th and 5th at the British 20km race walking championships, on the Isle of Man, on Sunday. Ghose recorded a time of 1.54.20, which was a personal best. Manzotti was just behind in 1.54.37, which improved here own UK over 55 women’s record by almost four minutes.
Above – Emily Ghose and Grazia Manzotti