Photo – Dante McNichol (left)
Lewis Church, from Tonbridge Athletic Club, won the South of England Decathlon Championship, at Horspath, near Oxford, at the weekend, with training partner Alex Hookway in third.
Church had been left disappointed at not gaining selection for the England team for this week’s Commonwealth Games, despite achieving the qualifying standard and being well ranked in the event. However, he has kept training and scored 7393 points at this championship, which was a solid performance in the very warm and windy conditions. He finished 475 points clear of Phil Kastner of Thames Valley Harriers, with Alex Hookway, from Tonbridge scoring 5484 points for third.
The Pole Vault was the highlight for both Tonbridge athletes, with Church setting a new personal best and club record of 4.60 metres, adding 5 centimetres to his previous mark, whilst Hookway equalled his pb with 3.80m. Dante McNicholl won another medal for Tonbridge at the championships, with a silver in the under 17 men’s Octathlon. This included personal bests in the Long Jump with 5.87m and the Javelin with 38.59m. McNichol added 143 points to his best ever points score to total 4742, whilst Joe Stone also set a pb of 4529 points in 4th.
On Friday evening, Tonbridge athletes dominated the invitational mile races, at the Medway mile community event, held at Medway Park Sports Centre, Gillingham. The women’s race was a tactical affair, where Annabel Carter and Harriet Woolley were in the lead group with four from Medway and Maidstone, for most of the distance. It was Carter who applied the pressure first at the start of the fourth and final lap, going on to win in 5.18.35, whilst Woolley finished fast in the home straight to finish in 5.19.82.
In the men’s race, Jordan Chambers came from a long way back with 200m to go to overhaul first Stuart Brown and then dipped passed Sean Molloy at the finish line to win in 4.13.94, with Tonbridge filling the first four places. Molloy ran 4.14.32, Brown 4.15.52 and Charlie Crick 4.17.07. During the week Molloy had run is fastest 800m time of the season with 1.51.08 at Eltham.
Also, at Eltham there were personal bests recorded over 800m by Alex Beeston (1.58.3), plus Ella King Powrie (2.20.70) and in the 1500m by Oliver Head (u15, 4.13.80), Harrison Fraser (u17, 4.20.65), Felipe Fujimori (u15, 4.24.74, plus Connor Prendergast (u15, 4.25.03). Kieran Eland ran a swift 49.60 when finishing 2nd in the 400m on the same night and Asha Root finished 3rd in the women’s Pat Kippax Invitation 400m race.
Ben Murphy ran 1.49.23 at Stretford, on Saturday evening, in his first race over the distance for a month.
On the roads, Helen Gaunt (37.07) won the women’s 10km race at Romney Marsh, on Sunday morning, with Nathan Chapman (34.14) finishing second in the men’s race.