Sussex youngsters brought home a bag of medals from the Southern Junior championships at Kingsmeadow, Kingston last weekend. The full results are now available on the Southern Counties site.
More than thirty progressed the finals (top eight) of their events while four struck gold.
Three of the gold medallist came in javelin throwing events. In the U17 age Group Crawley’s James Pratt and Jemima Caldwell both took titles with James throwing 63.01m and Jemima 43.10m ahead of Brighton & Hove’s Rachel Wall who at 39.69 to repeat their placings in the English Schools and the National championships earlier in the season.
The third javelin title went to Dulcie along with a personal best and a Sussex record when she threw 45.36m to beat English Schools and National Champion Ayesha Jones (Milton Keynes). Her tremendous effort was also a championships best performance and takes her to the top of the British Rankings for this year but she stays at number four in the British U15 All-time lists. Dulcie also made the final of the 800m event placing seventh in 2:25.18s
Keeping with the throwers the fourth Sussex gold medallist was Worthing’s Rebecca Roberts who had a tremendous weekend. Rebecca won the U15 discus throw with 27.24m, set a pb in the hammer throw of 38.16m for second place and just missed picking up s full set when she finished fourth in the shot put with another personal best of 10.96m.
It would not be an important championship without a medal in the pole vault event and Lewes A.C again came to our rescue with two silvers in the U17 boy’s event Isaac Lancaster who has topped 3.50m at every competition this season but at Kingsmeadow he soared over a pb of 3.70m for a silver medal. Club mate Emilie Oakden with a clearance of 3.40m repeated this placing.
There were two more silver medals in the U17 age group with Will Sutton from Crawley cleared 1.90m while former Crawley runner Miles Waterworth, now with Brighton Phoenix, who had several sub two minute clocking’s this season clock 2:00.29s for his silver.
Still in the U17 group, Ethan Curran (Crawley) picked up the bronze medal in the 400m when he ran his fastest time of 50.8s.and this was his first year in the age group.
Another bronze medal went to Brighton & Hove’s Josh Clarke, behind winner, Crawley’s James Pratt, with a personal best of 56.89m.
As usual there were several athletes missing a medal and placed fourth
In the U13s Crawley’s Paul Nixon put the shot 7.32m while In the U15 high jump club mate Ali Moghull was so close to the bronze clearing 1.70m, the same height as the third placed athlete but lost the medal on countback. Ali also finished sixth in the long jump with a fine, but windy 5.53m.
Another fourth place in this age group was Brighton Phoenix’s Archie Turner who clocked 4:32.59.
Crawley's Samuel Sprostranova clocked 2:06.21s in the U15 800m.
In the U17 women’s events Crawley’s Laura Wormley, who is a Surrey residence, finished fourth in the 1500m in 4:38.28s. While Brighton & Hove’s Eadie Yelling was fourth in the 1500m Steeplechase in 5:39.9s and fellow Brighton & Hove athlete Amber Purcell leapt 10.86m for her fourth place in the triple jump and she also placed 5.25m for eighth position in the long jump.