Sussex had probably their best ever Inter-Counties result at Bedford over the weekend despite the absence of many of their top athletes. Most counties seemed to suffer, as did Sussex, with many leading athletes choosing to miss this fixture for various reasons. There were four gold medals for Sussex and the women finished a splendid third in Division one while the men were sixth. Scoring 56.5 points, Sussex finished behind the winners Yorkshire, who scored 73.5 points and second placed Essex who totalled 64 points.
Fiona Clark pounded her way to a gold medal and a personal best in the 5,000 winning the title by seven seconds in 16:55.79s and Emma Macready dominated the 3,000m steeplechase winning by 15 seconds in 10:38.83s. A third gold for the women came from hammer thrower Louisa James who threw 56.38m while Katy Watts took second place in the javelin with a throw of 49.08m.
Elise Lovell was in particularly fine form leaping 5.70m for her fourth place in the long jump while Amy Barclay also picked up fourth place in the 100m hurdles clocking a nippy 14.26s and Kim Baptiste matched that placing in the 200m in 24.00s. In the men’s team event, which was won by Essex with 82 points to Middlesex’s 63, Yorkshire scored 46, Cambridge 40, Surrey 34 and Sussex totalled 28 points, a splendid effort. Ross Skelton had a tremendous battle with Devon’s Tom Merson before snatching victory in the 5,000m in his fastest ever time of 14:44.26s to 14:33.90s.
We were missing quite few big hitters and still managed this fantastic result. I'm really pleased for both teams. - Team Manager Craig Cox
In the men’s pole vault both Peter Moreno and Leigh Walker cleared 4.35m and shared fourth place and Nick Duggan clocked 4:17.96s for fourth place in the One-mile event. Jade Brewster took fifth place in the pole vault clearing 3.50m while Holly Turner clocked 57.95s to reach the final of the 400m where she finished eighth in 58.91s. Peter Moreno also took sixth place with a windy 6.99m and fought his way into the final of the 110m hurdles in 14.74s but crashed out in the final and did not finish.
Sussex Athletics reaches new heights in Bedford at the CAU Inter-Counties Championships.