A brilliant gold medal for Kimbeley Baptiste was the one of just two medallists for Sussex at the combined English and CAU championships at Bedford over the weekend.
The Crawley sprinter has certainly struck a purple patch and after a fine fifth place in the 100 metres on Saturday in 11.70s she tackled the 200m, where she seems to be in her element. There Baptiste eased to an impressive victory in her heat on Sunday in a nippy 23.88s.
Come the final Baptiste dominated the race from the start with only Scots runner Beth Dobbin offering any challenge and she was to finish a metre adrift as the Crawley runner won the title in 23.54s.
The second medal came in the 3,000m walk where Emily Ghose from Crowborough, who is in the U20 age group and competes for Tonbridge, took the silver medal in in 15:34.69s.
There was a near miss for Spencer Thomas (Brighton Phoenix) in the 800 metres where he was squeezed into fourth place in 1:50.80s.
Brighton & Hove’s Cameron Fillery, another U20 performer fought his way into the final of the 110m hurdles before finishing sixth in 14.35s and there was another sixth place for yet another U20 performer when Oliver Hopkins from Lewes clocked 15:17.30s in the men’s 3,000m walk.
In the pole vault Crawley’s George Turner set a personal best clearance of 4.65m to share sixth place.
There were Top Ten placings for Brighton athletes Katy Garland and Max Pickard with Garland (Brighton & Hove) clearing 1.67m in the high jump and Pickard (Phoenix) clocking a pb of 4:15.59s in the One mile race both filling ninth place.
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