Sussex athletes scooped up three medals at the UK Indoor championships at Birmingham at the weekend with Tony Harries (Brighton Phoenix) striking gold in the 200 metres.
In a year where there are both European Games and the Birmingham’s Commonwealth Games teams seeking athletes, Toby has certainly started well and he was a convincing winner in an Indoor PB of 20.99s.
Fellow Phoenix athlete Charlie Da ‘Vall Grice was squeezed out of the title in a slowly run 1,500m final in 3:50.22s which earnt him a bronze medal.
Another Sussex athlete, Kim Baptiste from Crawley picked up a bronze medal in the 60m sprint in 7.33s and she may well be looking for a possible place in the Commonwealth Games where Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland enter separate teams.
Club mate Jo Rowland, who is a Surrey athlete just missed a medal in the Pentathlon with 4018 points while Brighton Phoenix athletes Beth Kidger and Archie Davis took fourth and fifth places respectively. Beth clocked 9:24.95s in the 3,000m and Archie 1:49.7s in the 800m.
There were seventh placings for pole-vaulters George Turner (Crawley) and Lewes’s Gemma Tutton who is still in the U20 age group. Five metre vaulter, George, cleared 4.94m while Gemma, the National U20 champion cleared 3.90m.
Brighton Half-marathon.
Although quantity had almost returned to normal at the Brighton Half Marathon, quality was made a lot harder thanks to a brisk southeast breeze.
In difficult conditions, HY athlete Ross Skelton, who has been in sparkling form this season outsprinted the leaders into the wind in the closing stages. Ross proved a convincing winner in 67:48s, half a minute clear of Ashford’s Marshall Smith with Brighton Phoenix’s Simon Heath taking third place in a desperate last minute sprint in 68:58s from Brighton & Hove’s Kevin Moore who clocked 69:00.
Worthing’s Nick Dawson finished fifth in 69:03s while Crawley’s Neil Boniface placed 13th, the first M40 runner to finish in 71:50s.
Charlotte Ragan (Basingstoke) was the first woman to finish clocking 79:16s to Rachael Gifford, is still a Sussex athlete despite moving out of the County, and was the runner up 79:29s.
Emma Navesey (Lewes) took third spot in 79:47s ahead of club mate Emily Proto who finished seventh in 83:16s.