Photo – TAC under 20 men’s team of Tom Claridge, Harrison Fraser, Jake Brislane and Jamie Macdonald
Tonbridge Athletic Club athletes appeared at National Championships, both outdoors and indoors at the weekend, coming away with a collection of medals. The English National Cross-Country Championships, were held at Parliament Hill Fields, in North London, whilst the UK Indoor Athletics Championships took place at the Birmingham Arena.
Parliament Hill always offers challenging cross-country courses, but this year the conditions were extremely muddy underfoot. This was particularly the case towards the end of the ten races, once a few thousand runners had competed.
The highlights for Tonbridge were a superb and unexpected team win from the under 20 men’s squad and a second-place finish for James Kingston in the senior men’s race. Kingston and Richard Slade of Chiltern had managed to forge a gap on the rest of the field by the time they started the final lap of three, by which time they were lapping slower runners from the two thousand that started.
Slade pulled away over the final two kilometres of the twelve kilometre course to win by 31 seconds. Kingston was a similar distance ahead of the third placed runner, Grierson, from Highgate. Tonbridge then had Cole Gibbens (34th), Alex Howard (49th), Ben Cole (59th), Matthew Taylor 60th) and Will Beeston (61st) as the scorers to finish with 265 points. This placed them 5th of 112 clubs and just two points behind Leeds. Bristol, Shaftesbury and Highgate filled the first three places.
Unexpectedly, the senior women’s team finished 5th of 82 teams, in their championship through Charlotte Alexander (15th), Katie Goodge (54th), Alice Wood (86th) and Lucy Thompson (131st).
The team highlight for Tonbridge came from the under 20 men winning the gold medals, led home by two runners who had possibly their best ever races. Jake Brislane finished 11th and Harrison Fraser 19th, supported by Jamie Macdonald in 30th and Tom Claridge in 31st. Tonbridge scored 91 points to defeat the favourites Aldershot by 24 points.
Tonbridge had teams in every age group race, with the under 13 boys 4th, under 13 girls 13th, under 15 boys 10th, under 15 girls 12th, under 17 women 9th and under 20 women 9th.
West and Higgins win silver medals at indoor championships
James West and Jack Higgins both won silver medals at the UK Indoor Championships, with West guaranteeing his place on the British team for the upcoming European Championships, in the Netherlands.
West battled to try and close down George Mills, who recently set a British record for the distance and was just 0.17 seconds behind at the finish, with Mills winning in a Championship record time of 7.40.16. The performance secures West’s place on the GB team.
Jack Higgins won his 800 metres heat on Saturday, to qualify for Sunday’s final. However, at the halfway stage he found himself at the back of the field and any chance of a medal seemed gone. Somehow, he summoned a very strong finish, moving from 5th to 2nd in the final 50 metres and snatching the silver medal on the line. Unfortunately for Higgins, his best time this year is just outside the qualifying standard needed for the European Championships, although there is a slim chance he could be invited based on European rankings.
Tonbridge had nine athletes at the championships, including Kieran Eland who made it to the semi-final round of the 400 metres, Henry Marshall who ran a personal best of 48.27 in his 400m heat and Max Selby who ran a pb of 1.52.22 in his 800m heat.