Sussex has a new European Athletics Champion following the European Masters Championships at Braga in Portugal last weekend.
Shoreham College schoolteacher Leanne Buxton, a former Sussex record holder and currently Sussex Schools team manager, trounced the field in the W40 indoor pentathlon to finish more than 200 points ahead of the Dutch athlete Wendy Visser scoring 3789 points to her main rival’s 3545 points.
Leanne was certainly in fine form clocking a cracking 9.28s in the 60m hurdles which was the second-fastest of the event. She followed this with a high jump clearance of 1.44m a 10.89m shot put, a fine long jump of 4.98m and an 800m clocking of 2:39.40s. She took the lead after the first event and was never headed throughout the competition.
Earlier she had finished a fine fifth in the 60m hurdles final in 9.37s after a 9.31s heat.
Leanne has been doing sterling work for the Sussex Schools Association taking over many of the jobs done by the County Schools chair/team manager Judy Lasis who had to step back following the life-threatening rugby injury to her younger son James in France. After many months in a French hospital, he has been transferred, to Bucks Hospital including a spell at Stoke Mandeville and has made a little progress.