From hail to sun, to sudden downpours, the weather at K2 switched throughout the day as hardy officials and athletes battled against the ever-changing elements. Meanwhile, championship best performances tumbled on the first day of the 2019 Sussex County Track and Field Championships.
For the third year in a row, Worthing Under-20, Ben Hawkes set a CBP when he launched his hammer out to a mighty 69.08m, his fourth longest throw ever, after consistently strong performances this year.
The Under-15 girls 75m hurdles was always going to be a cracker and the CBP fell initially in the heats, when Crawley’s Noa Maoundus ran 11.4 seconds. However, pushed in the final by clubmate Isabella Lehtinen, Maoundus ran a superb 11.35s to Lehtinen’s 11.5s.
Maoundus was one of the stars of the weekend - a triple gold medallist, winning the 100m later in the day and the 200m on Sunday.
There was more swift hurdling on show in the under-17 women's 80mH race where Abigail Packham (CRA) equalled the CBP, set last year by Katie Bristow, with a time of 11.49s.
Her clubmates, siblings Michelle and Muna Okorie, made it another 1-2 for Crawley in the shot event with big sister Michelle setting a personal best and CBP of 12.29m to Muna’s 10-metre breakthrough PB of 10.11m.
Fleet-footed, Team Synergy under-15, Bailey Smith, took a chunk out of the previous 200m CBP of 23.8s, running a time of 23.46s in the final for a dominant victory.
No CBP, but Brighton’s Stephen Ferroni was equally in control of the 5000m, sharing an early lead with Lewes AC's Ben Savill and breaking away, with 800m to go, for the win in 14:36.84 from Savill's 14:44.35. For the Lewes runner this was an upgrade from last year’s bronze medal. Veteran B&H runner Howard Bristow paced his race beautifully to come through in third place in 15:07.73.
Haywards Heath’s Emma Navesey had a 50 second victory margin in the women’s race winning in 17:52.87 and Brighton’s Tomer Tarragano won the under-20 men’s race in 15:13.81.
The county’s youngest athletes have an under 13 Minithon on both days. On Saturday it was the turn of the girls and 46 competed with each required to do a throw, a jump and a run. Brighton’s record breaking javelin thrower, Dulcie Yelling, ran a swift 2:28 over 800m, high jumped 1.27m and threw the shot 7.05m to just pip her club mate Libby Russell (1.30m high jump, 21.56m discus and 22.41s -150m) to gold with 76 points to Russell’s 73. Last year’s silver medallist Horsham’s Madeleine Way came third with 71 points.
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