On Bank Holiday Monday, Tonbridge Athletic Club hosted their first meeting on the year, purely for club members. There was a very good turnout, although the extremely windy conditions affected performances across a wide range of events.
In the sprints, there were still some fast times posted. Josh Shaghaghi and Ethan Tasker (u17) recorded 11.26 and 11.34, respectively, although wind aided, whilst Harriet Medlen (u15) was the fastest girl with 13.33, despite running into a wind. Over 200 metres, both Joe Stone (u15) and Issy Fassnidge (u20) improved their personal bests to 24.83 and 26.44, although both races were run into a headwind. Fassnidge returned to run a pb 400 metres of 61.23, where Kieran Eland recorded 50.04, despite facing the worst conditions of the day.
In the middle-distance events, Ben Murphy won the 1000 metres in 2.29.91, edging out Kieran Reilly at the end. Similarly, under 17s Huxley Crush (2.09.84) and Angus Currie (2.10.38) had a race to the line over 800 metres. Lily Stewart was the fastest female at the distance with 2.26.68. Verity Hopkins continued her run of good form over a range of distances and this time recorded 4.55.41 in her first ever 1500 metres. Stuart Brown impressed as the overall fastest, at the distance, winning in 4.01.62 and looks set for a potentially good season.
In the throws, three under 17s threw the Javelin over 40 metres, headed by Felix McCardle-Hodge with a pb of 48.12m. Jonah Radcliffe was just behind, also with a pb of 47.64m, with Freya Ridge (u20) being the furthest female thrower and over thirty metres for the first time with 31.26m.
Decathlete Lewis Church was the strongest Discus thrower with 43.21m, which was a personal best, whilst he also cleared 4.00m in the Pole Vault, where former English Schools Champion Lucinda White (u17) scaled 2.90m. White was also close to her pb in the Shot Put with 10.41m, where Harry Kendall just missed his best with 13.06m. In the Hammer, club coach Charlotte Nicholls threw the longest with 30.68m.
Under 15, Matilda Secker, was one of the most impressive performers on the day, as she added eight centimetres to her High Jump pb, scaling 1.48m. Ben Wilkes (u17) was the sole Triple Jumper in action, recording 11.05m. The Long Jump was one of the best of the field events, in depth, with three athletes over six metres in Lewis Church at 6.55m, Lewis Swaby (u20) 6.19m and Joe Stone (u15) 6.03m, the latter’s being a huge pb. Samantha Stubbs (u20, featured photo) jumped 5.23m to add three centimetres to her personal best.
There were a few standout performances over the past week, from the club’s distance runners. In the USA, Chris Olley improved his season’s best time over 1500 metres by five seconds, at Fresno, with 3.44.66. Ben Cole finished 15th in the Chesptow 10k, on Sunday, in 30.17. Phoebe Barker ran 17.04.0 for 5000 metres at Cambridge and Nicole Taylor ran 9.30.68, for 3000 metres, at Gillingham. New club member, Imogen Amos, won women’s race at the Doddington 5k Trial Race on Saturday in 21.07.
Some of the club’s sprinters competed at Worthing, on Sunday, and posted some excellent times, although all had a wind reading over the legal 2.0 metres per second for record purposes. Lucy Tallon’s 100m of 12.18 was the fastest under 17 time ever posted, by a Tonbridge under 17 athlete, and she was unlucky to do it with a wind reading of 2.1 m/s. She backed this up with her fastest ever 200 metres of 25.60. Harriet Medlen (u15) ran her fastest ever 200 metres of 27.24 and recorded a 13.06 for 100 metres. Anton Bachorski (u20) equalled his season’s best of 10.80 in the 100 metres.
This coming weekend the Kent Athletics Championships take place at Ashford, although like all meetings currently being held, Covid guidelines will apply.
Tonbridge meeting results here – https://data.opentrack.run/en-gb/x/2021/GBR/tacmay/
Photos here – https://www.flickr.com/photos/156678663@N02/albums