There were gold medals for Brighton & Hove’s Tom French and Brighton Phoenix’s Sophie Mansfield in the South of England Senior and U20 indoor championships at Lee Valley last weekend. For French this was a splendid start to the year as he leapt 7.36m in his first serious competition to comfortably win the title and this effort was easily his best opening jump todate.
He already ranks as the second best Sussex long jumper of all time and could this be the year that Roy Cruttenden’s (Brighton & Hove) sixty year old record tumbles.
James Hollins (Surrey/Crawley) finished fifth with 6.89m and Noel Butler (Worthing) 6.55 placed sixth.
Mansfield made a promising start to her year when she strode to victory in the U20 800m finishing six metres clear of her nearest rival in 2:15.90s while Sophie Dowle (Surrey/Crawley) placed fourth in 2:20.34s,
Elise Lovell (Hastings), better known as a Heptathlete/Long jumper snatched a surprise silver medal in the 60m in 8.21s.
It was the Under 20 who scooped most of the Sussex medals and there were further silver medals for Archie Davis (Phoenix) in the 800m in 1:51.47s, George Turner (Crawley) in the pole vault with a personal best of 4.50m. and Chloe Billingham (Horsham) in the U20 women’s pole vault with 3.40m.
Ella Chalmers and Jack Woods from Worthing struck bronze in the 60m in 7.83s and 4:15.90m in the 1500m.
Finley Bigg (Phoenix) just missed a medal finishing fourth in 400m in 50.22s after clocking 50.11s in his semi final and Amy Beswick (East Grinstead) clocked 9.23s in the 60m hurdles while Mary Adeniji (Brighton & Hove was fifth in the triple jump leaping 11.08m.