EvansT

Sebastian Rodger from Eastbourne made a cracking start to his track season at the Loughborough International meeting on Sunday in the 400 metres hurdles.

In recent seasons Rodger has been chasing the standard for major championships until well into the season but with a fluid run in good conditions on Sunday the Eastbourne runner hit the “European Standard” with an impressive 49.80s.

Rodger said “It’s nice to run sub 50 seconds, I know it should be normal, but to achieve the European Standard so early in the season makes me very happy.”

A tremendous day for Sussex, at the Inter-counties cross country championships at Prestwold Hall in Loughborough, on Saturday saw one gold medal for Bethany Cook and four Top Ten team places.

Both the U17 teams finished a splendid fifth place, the senior men a remarkable seventh and the U15 girls filled ninth place  - all significant team performances.

The course was really tough with mud that Dave Leach, the men’s team manager, described as, “the worst I’ve seen this century”.

Sussex will be represented in all ten age groups at the Inter-counties Cross-country Championships, being held at Loughborough on Saturday.

Some teams are looking pretty thin and as we go to press it will be touch and go if we complete a scoring team in either the U20 or senior women’s age groups.

Saturday’s races will be a good test for many of the youngsters who will also be competing for the Sussex School’s teams at the English Schools Inter-counties the following weekend at Leeds.