The South of England Championships at Lee Valley on the first weekend of February saw fewer Sussex athletes competing than normal.
Eastbourne Rover's trainee medic and star shot putter, Daniel James (DJ) Thomas, was almost two metres down on his best, but his 13.89m throw was still enough to win gold in the senior men's competition, by a mere four centimetres.
On the track Daniel's clubmate Moyo Sargent equalled his best ever indoor 400m time of 50.21 seconds in the under 20 men's semi, before winning the silver medal in the final with a 50.37s clocking. Three 400m rounds in one day is a gruelling schedule for athletes whatever their age, so it was a very promising start to Sargent's indoor season.
Brighton Phoenix's Finley Bigg was easily the fastest qualifier for the senior men's 400m final and looked set for gold but did not finish the race.
Lewes's Livvy Connor has won national, English Schools and regional titles in the pole vault and is still the Sussex under 20 pole vault record holder, but in recent years she has focussed on the horizontal rather than vertical jumps. At Lee Valley she leapt out to a personal best of 5.69m in the Long Jump and bagged herself a bronze medal. She was nine centimetres ahead of another Sussex athlete Mary Adjeni who was fourth.
Our only other medallist was Livvy's clubmate, Jack Harris, who pole vaulted 4.50m for the bronze medal in the u20 men's competition.
There were several Sussex finalists including the Crawley trio of Morgan Hayward who was fourth in the under 20 men's Triple Jump, Poppy Oliver and Holly Turner who both made the finals of the 400m u20 and Senior women's races respectively. Lewes's Ivy Spencer was fifth in the u20 women's pole vault, as was Brighton's Kelsey Sutherland in the u20 women's Triple Jump.