Photo above – James West at Bromley in August
West competing with best in the World
James West of Tonbridge Athletic Club followed up his fast 1500 metres in Zagreb with an even quicker performance in Doha, on Friday. This was West’s first appearance at one of the prestigious Diamond League meetings abroad, although he has competed in a couple in England, in recent times.
West finished 5th in 3.34.07 to improve his Tonbridge AC record, but more significantly moved to second on the UK rankings for the year and 19th on the all-time list. The race was won by Stewie McSweyn, who broke the Australian record. West also improved the University of Oregon record, where he has been based, which had been held by 2016 Olympic Champion, Matt Centrowitz. This was his last race of the season before he has a break and then starts building his Winter training to get ready for next year.
Tonbridge athletes attended a few other events last week, including track meetings at Bromley and Wimbledon. Harriet Woolley won a 1500 metres at Bromley, on Monday night in 4.58.00, which was a personal best, whilst similarly under 15 Ethan Rocks won over 800 metres with a pb of 2.11.77. Lily Slack (under 15) ran a pb of 4.44.81 over 1500 metres and there were also pbs for Fenton Davoren (under 17) of 2.05.13 over 800 metres and Edward Lindsay (under 15) of 4.31.18 over 1500 metres. Also, at Bromley, Lucinda White (under 17) cleared 3.13 metres in the Pole Vault, which was her best this year.
On Wednesday evening, racing over 3000 metres at Wimbledon, Kieran Reilly wrapped up his track season when finishing 2nd in the fastest race of the night in 8.18.70, whilst Jamie Goodge ran a personal best of 8.35.10 in an earlier race. Katie Goodge ran 9.54.84 in race one.
On Saturday, Kiri Marsh ran 28.11 at the Bassingham 5 mile road race in Lincolnshire, finishing as 2nd female and improving her best by 22 seconds. Then on Sunday, racing over 5 kilometres, at Milton Keynes Corey De’ath with 14.46, Stuart Brown at 15.15 and Luke Fisher with 15.42, all ran personal bests.
James Taylor, who is Chairman of Tonbridge AC, won the Hever multi terrain half marathon on Sunday, as part of a series of running, duathlon and triathlon events being held at the venue over the weekend.
All of the events mentioned were organised with significant social distancing and other guidelines in place.