A great weekend for Sussex at Ashford at the weekend saw Sussex youngsters win six gold medals at the South of England Under 15/17 championships.
As always the August holidays seriously depleted entries, several leading Sussex performers missed the championships and this really is not a suitable weekend to hold these championships.
Brighton & Hove’s Amber Anning was only half affected as she missed Saturday’s competition because she had arrived back from holiday early Saturday morning but she made up for it on Sunday by taking two Under 15 titles including a Championship record.
Competing in the triple jumped Anning improved her own year old record when she bounded out to 11.65m to lift herself into second place on the British All time U15 list. Only one other Sussex woman, Livvy Connor (Lewes) who is an U20 performer, has bettered this effort amongst Sussex athletes this year. Anning capped this by winning the 200m title in a cracking 24.88s.
Also in the U15 age group Ben Hawkes (Worthing), who is better known in Sussex as a top hammer thrower took the bronze medal in that event with a fine throw of 53.83m but won the shot title with 12.91m and also placed fourth in the discus throw with 39.56m.
In the U17 age group Lillie Franks (Crawley) who has had an excellent season won the high jump crown with a personal best effort of 1.73m while another gold medal came in the javelin throw where Scot Staples (Lewes) took the title with 53.49m while Joe Fuggle from Wadhurst who competes for Tonbridge won the U17 400m hurdles in a personal best of 53.77s..
There were U17 silver medals for Calum Neil (Horsham) in the pole vault with 4.20m and Oliver Hopkins (Lewes) in the 3000m walk in 17:21.8s while club mate Bill Saunders collected his silver in the U15 pole vault clearing 3.70m, Natasha Purchas (Crawley) cleared 3.10m in the Girls event and Keira Aslett (Hastings) clocked 2:19.64s in the 800m.
Alyssa White (Chichester) won bronze in the U15 200m in 25.46s and just missed out on another medal in the 100m where she placed fourth with 12.61s while Amber Pennington (Brighton & Hove) threw 35.92m for bronze in the U15 javelin and Mary Adeniji (Eastbourne) leapt 10.87m for her bronze in the U17 triple jump.
There were also several nears misses with U17 performers Vicki Pellett (Crawley) throwing 49.72m. in the hammer and Sofia Cunningham (Eastbourne) and Cameron Fillery (Brighton & Hove) placing fourth in the 100m in 12.33s and the 100m hurdles in 13.40s respectively.
There were also fourth places in the U15 events for Elinor Fitzgerald and Alex Dyball (Brighton & Hove) in the hammer throw and long jump with personal bests of 37.77m and 5.40m.
There were many others who made the final eight and scored personal bests on what must be one of the best championships for Sussex in recent years.
I hope I have mentioned all those Sussex athletes who made the top four places but please let me know if I have missed anyone.