Sussex athletes, Nigel Gates (Brighton & Hove) and Crawley’s Paul Navesey have annexed National running titles in recent weeks but now Ian Richards from Steyning has topped them with two European Masters titles at Ancona in Italy.
Richards, who had collected a string of World and European Masters titles in recent years was again in fine form against strong fields including the much fancied Italian Ettorino Formentin.
Racing indoors over 3000m and then outdoors over 5k in the M65 age group the Steyning walker took no prisoners as he surged away from the start in both races and romped to victory.
In each event he won by over forty seconds from the local favourite, Formentin, clocking 15:09.34 indoors and 25:30 on the Road.
Crawley Spring Meeting
There were more English Schools standards gained at Sunday’s Crawley Spring Open meeting which was held in much improved weather to their earlier meeting a couple of weeks back.
Hammer throwers were again to the fore with the home Club’s Lotte Hoare in the U20 age group throwing, a modest for her, 39.99m which was still an Entry Standard while Rosie Forrester (Worthing), making her season’s debut threw 42.75m in the U17 age group.
Both Ben Hawkes (Worthing), who improved his personal best and Vicki Pellett (Crawley) with 56.08m and 47.78m respectively again bettered the standards in the U17 groups.
Also in the field events Naomi Owolabi (Brighton Phoenix), who is very much an all-rounder won the U15 shot putt with 10.73m.
On the track the Brighton & Hove athletes Amber Anning cracked the National Standard in her first year in the U17 age group when running well clear of her rivals in the 200m in 24.9s, which was probably the outstanding performance of the afternoon and Cameron Fillery again in his first year, though this time U20, clocked 14.9s in the high hurdles.