Photo – TAC 4x100m team of Asha Root, Matilda Secker, Ella Thomas and Evie Dixon
Tonbridge Athletic Club finished second of six teams in their National Athletics League fixture, at Kingston, on Saturday, which keeps alive their promotion chances. They now sit in second place in the Championship South Division, just ahead of Bournemouth and behind Crawley. The top two clubs in each Championship Division will compete at the Premiership promotion match, in the middle of August. However, Tonbridge have one more match in July before they can plan for that.
On Saturday, it was the women who outscored the men with some very strong performances. Asha Root contributed more points than any other athlete, with an A-string win in the 400 metres in 55.54, a B-string 200m victory with a 24.90 personal best and 2nd in the 100m A-string in 12.28. She then helped the women’s 4x100m and the mixed 4x 400m relay teams to victories. Matilda Secker joined Root in both relays and won the 100m hurdles A-string race in 14.92, whilst Evie Dixon won the 200m A-string in 25.86 and helped the sprint relay team. Katie Goodge, continuing her good recent form, had comfortable wins over 1500m and the 5000m, whilst Bronwyn Yeandle set a personal best of 3.65m when winning the Pole Vault.
Tonbridge managed only three men’s A-string victories, with Harry Kendall being the sole field event winner in the Long Jump with 6.95 metres. Toby Bawtree, one of the youngest members of the team, had an impressive win in the 800m in 1.54.86. The closest race on the track was the men’s 3000m, where James Kingston had to follow the strong pace set by Abdi Elmi, from Bournemouth. The two were locked together for almost the entire race, before a sprint over the final 100 metres, which resulted win for Kingston in 8.14.16, just 0.02 seconds ahead.
Earlier in the week, Tonbridge AC held their monthly evening open meeting, which attracted around two hundred competitors. Amongst the highlights was Toby Bawtree winning the fastest 800m race with a personal best of 1.52.91. Two under 17 women also set 800m pbs, as Isla Murray ran 2.17.30 and Neve Raymond 2.18.41. Reef Page won the 400m with a pb of 51.35 and the High Jump with 1.70m. Harry Owen continued his excellent season with a 3.90m clearance in the Pole Vault. Helen Gaunt set a TAC women’s over 35/40 and 45 record at 1500m of 4.52.60.
Lewis Church finished 9th in the international Decastar Decathlon, near Bordeaux, France at the weekend, where he scored 7732 points. His score was a little down from the heights of his two other Decathlons this season, but he is showing great consistency across the ten events, at this level of competition.
Note – no results were received from the UKYDL u17/20 on 6th July prior to writing