Joe Smith from Crawley chalked up another impressive victory when he stepped up to 3,000 metres for the England U15 championships at Bedford over the weekend.
In recent weeks Smith has chalked up wins over both 800 and 1500 metres and at Bedford he trounced the National championships field, winning the title by more than thirty metres in 9:01.33s, some 14 seconds inside his previous personal best (PB).
There were fine performances too in the U17 Women's Pole vault where Crawley’s Natasha Purchas set a PB of 3.61m, the same height as the winner, to take the silver medal and in the U15 Boys High Jump where Brighton & Hove’s Harry Rienecker-Found equalled his best of 1.80m when taking the silver medal. Another high jump equalling PB performance came from Lillie Franks (Crawley) in the U17 event where she cleared 1.73m for the bronze medal. Franks' clubmate Charlotte Alexander claimed the bronze medal also in the U15 Girls 1500m with a time of 4:41.85.
Ben Hawkes (Worthing) just missed a medal, placing fourth in the U17 hammer throw with 58.85m while two Sussex athletes made the Top six in the U15 Girls javelin competition where Elizabeth Korczak (Brighton & Hove) threw 34.87m for fifth place and Horsham’s Peanut Meeking threw 33.92m for sixth place.
Katie Bristowe (Crawley) ran very well in both her heat and semi to qualify for the U15G 75m Hurdles final, where she came sixth in a time of 11.39s. Jack Harris (Lewes) also took sixth place in the U17 Pole vault and both Sam Illesley (Worthing) and Harry Baker (Horsham) finished seventh with Illesley throwing 48.73m in the U17 Hammer and Baker clearing 1.86m in the U17 high jump.
Eastbourne's Moyo Daramola did well to make the final of the U15 300m placing eighth in 37.70s.
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