Charlie Grice underlined his claim for a place in the Rio team when he had a magnificent win in the “B” one mile race at the “Prefontaine Classic” at Eugene, which was part of the Diamond League Series.
The 22 year Brighton Phoenix athlete did not command a place in the Diamond League “A” race but he notched up one of his most important victories to date by chopping some two seconds off his previous best as he stormed to victory in 3:52.64s.
This time would have earnt him fourth place in the “A” race and it also takes him above Crawley’s Tom Hutchings (1982) and club mate Mark Rowlands (1989) on the Sussex “All Time” list.
He is now ranked second behind Steve Ovett.
Youth Development League (Round Two)
It was a tough weekend for the Sussex teams in the second round of the Upper Age group of the Youth Development League with most struggling to get out full strength team on this holiday weekend.
Fourth team spots for the Crawley and Chichester teams in Premier 2 at Sevenage and South West 2 at Ealing respectively were the best for Sussex.
In South West 2 at Kingston the combined Team Sussex finished sixth and Brighton & Hove seventh while Horsham Blue Star also placed seventh in their North East 1 league at Eltham.
There were however many fine individual performances with probably the U17 women’s Hammer throw where three athletes topped the English Schools standard was probably the best.
At Stevenage Vicki Pellett, who already has a Standard under her belt, won her event with 48.53m while at Kingston Larisa Carter (Team Sussex) set a PB when winning with 47.62m from Rosie Forrester, throwing for Brighton, another PB of 46.63m, both English Schools standards.
Still chasing the Schools standard Elinor Fitzgerald (Brighton & Hove) threw 40.29m to win the “B” while back at Stevenage Marcus Jones took the U17 Men’s hammer with a PB of 46.36m.
Abby Beswick (Team Sussex) set a PB of 5.53m in the U20 long jump when winning at Kingston.
The women high jumpers were also in good form with Lillie Franks soaring over 1.65 to win the U20 jump for Crawley and at Eltham Horsham jumpers Arabella Beattie cleared 1.55m to win the U17 event and Lucy Milnthorpe took the U20 event with 1.63m.
Sussex Schools Combined event.
Some forty athletes are entered for the Sussex Schools Combined Events championships at the K2 Leisure Centre at Crawley on Wednesday starting at 12.00 noon.