Photo – Jack Higgins
The Higgins brothers at Tonbridge Athletic Club, continue to produce some outstanding results, with Ted running a 3.54 mile last week and Jack winning in the London Olympic Stadium this week.
The London Diamond League meeting took place in the London Stadium, on Saturday, in front of 60,000 spectators and was live on BBC1. Whilst Josh Kerr grabbed the headlines with a World record in the mile, earlier in the afternoon a UK domestic 800 metres took place, featuring most of the country’s best over the distance.
Jack Higgins had been invited to race and was up against several of the men that he competed with in the UK Championships, including Henry Jonas, from Norwich, who beat him that day. A pacemaker helped get the race going and went through 400 metres in 50.6, with Higgins tucked in behind and then with 300 metres to go he found himself in the lead, with little option but to try and keep the strong pace going. He managed to do this, until the last 30 metres, when his legs started to buckle and Jonas was closing fast. Higgins threw himself at the line to win by 0.11 seconds in 1.45.15, his second fastest time ever and one of his most memorable career experiences to date.
Lucas Cameron only recently joined Tonbridge AC, although he has been training with the 400 metres squad at the club, under the guidance of the coach, Iain Presnell, for the last year. Cameron, at just seventeen years old, competed for Great Britain, at the European under 18 Championships, at Rieti, Italy.
Racing over the 400 metres on Thursday, Cameron won his heat in 47.93, which was both a Tonbridge AC under 18 and under 20 record. He then finished 3rd in his semi-final on Friday, improving to 47.57, which was a personal best, before finishing 7th in Saturday’s final in 47.92.
The Tonbridge under 14 and 16 squad finished a superb 3rd of the six clubs, in their UK Youth Development League Premier Division meeting, at Reading, on Saturday. This leaves them in third position overall, securing their premiership status with one match still to come.
Osarode Oviawe won both the under 16 men’s Discus and Hammer, at Reading, with 39.41 metres and 61.05 metres, respectively. Tiffany Oyewale won the under 16 women’s 80m hurdles in 11.46 and the Shot Put with 10.72m, the former being a personal best and Tonbridge AC age record. In the same age group, Seren Field won the Javelin with a personal best of 39.92m and Sophie Lawrence won the under 14 High Jump with a 1.53m clearance.
On Saturday, Lucy Reid was the first female home in the Run Through Battersea 10k road race in 33.21 and James West was 10th over 5000 metres at Heusden, Belgium in 13.23.49. Both are making good progress after significant injury issues over the last year.