Brighton Phoenix’s Charlie Grice ran his second fastest time for the one mile in “Oslo Dream Mile” on Thursday. Although finishing sixth in a world class field his clocking of 3:52.85s saw him finish just over one second behind Kenyan winner Asbel Kiprop who clocked 3:51.48s.
The Weekend
Although many of the leading Sussex senior and Under 20 athletes will be competing at the South of England Championships at Lee Valley this weekend most eyes will be focussed on the K2 Leisure Centre at Crawley and the 83rd Sussex Schools Championships on Saturday.
Starting with the hammer throwing at 9.30 and the track events at 11.00 this event will not only be the major event this season for many of the athletes but a stepping stone to the English Schools championships in July for the top sixty athletes.
Those athletes will mainly be selected for the Sussex Schools team on Monday but the team will not be finalised until the following weekend after the South East Inter-County match at Kingston.
It is a great shame that poor scheduling by UK athletics will again rob the County Schools event of a final appearance at the Schools events of many of the top U20 athletes who one week later will be expected to compete in the National Under 20 championships.
Selection for the Sussex Schools team will largely conditional on the athletes achieving the Schools Standard, either before this weekend’s battle or on the day and to date some forty athletes have tucked the standard under their belt.
Some U20s however will be seeking to find higher rated competition at Lee Valley to gain that valuable standard.
The top Sussex athletes like steeplechaser Rob Mullett, 1500 metre specialists Charlie Grice and Lee Emanuel are not likely to show at Lee Valley while some may not be able come to London from their Universities, two weekends in a row and may well opt for Bedford and the England U23 and U20 championships the following weekend.
For seniors the Area championships are a stepping stone towards the UK championships that will be held on the last weekend of this month.