The Sussex women turned in a tremendous performance at the Inter-County championships at Bedford over the weekend by finishing 4th out of 42 counties with a fantastic 49 points. This was a great effort with some awesome individual performances.
Elise Lovell had a great day winning the long jump and is the first Sussex athlete in history to break 6 meters (6.07), albeit wind assisted, she then took second in the 100 hurdles in a new PB and sub 14 second run (13.86) to jump up the Sussex All-time list to second place.
Emma Macready ran a new PB (10:26.41) in the 3000m steeplechase to retain her Inter-county title but she is now also the A.A.A champion.
Louisa James who came close to the 60 metre mark again with 59.85m in the hammer to take the bronze medal while Kimberley Baptiste just missed the medals in the 200m placing fourth in the 200m in 24.89s.
Livvy Connor also grabbed a bronze in a new PB in the vault (3.90). Fiona Clark was 5th in the 5000m in 17:05.06 after a well-timed piece of running.
Other finalists include Rebecca Jennings who finished 6th in the 100 hurdles with another solid time of 14.24s to back up her fine performances this season and veteran Caroline Garratt was pleased to make the Javelin final in a tough field placing 12th with 34.55m after throwing 35.38m in the qualifying rounds.
Our last final points scorer was Sophie Mansfield who made the 800m final placing seventh in 2:11.37s.
The men managed 11th place overall and scored 18 points in a fiercely competitive championship.
The main highlight came from Tom French who leapt out to 7.29 in the final round in the long jump to snatch a well-earned bronze medal!
Ollie Smith proved he is a real championship performer and can win big points for the team by finishing 6th in 48.15s in a fiercely competitive 400m.
James Lasis threw 46.68m to finish seventh in the discus throw with big brother Matt placing tenth with 42.19m while Matt repeated his tenth spot in the hammer throw with 56.84m after throwing 59.45m in qualifying and James recorded a PB of 57.73m in qualifying but decided not to contest the final so that he could concentrate on the discus final..
Ian Richards was our last points scorer with 2 points after finishing 8th in the 3000m walk in 14:31.01s.
Samuel Heawood did well to make a competitive shot put final in his debut season placing tenth with 13.35m.
Team manager Craig Cox said – “I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has helped make this Sussex team so successful over the last two years. We have built up a great network amongst the team managers and most of the athletes and coaches and I hope it can continue. This is Sussex's most successful period as a team and I'm sure we can go on and win more trophies and build on the eight counties title we won for the first time this season.
Thanks for the support and good luck in the rest of the season.