In a splendid afternoon’s racing in the Sussex road Relay championships in the ground of Christ’s Hospital just one record was broken and all the individual lap record remained intact despite a determined effort by Charlie Grice on the last leg of the senior men’s race.
It was the prodigious Under 13 Hastings Girls team who were responsible for the record with a sparkling, lead from pillar to post effort. Harmony Cooper, Armaline Primdal and Olivia White finished nearly one minute clear of Brighton & Hove in 19:48 to 20:42 to take nine seconds off the record they had set just twelve months back with the Brighton & Hove “B” team in third place in 21:21.
Cooper ran the day’s fastest lap in 6:19 with White clocking 6:28 and Niamh Halloren (Brighton & Hove) recording 6:48 for third fastest.
The two senior races were absorbing but in different ways. Could Worthing & District retain their women’s title, could Brighton Phoenix break their own team record and could Charlie Grice set a new lap record.
The women’s race saw the very much inform Helena Tobin (Brighton & Hove) run a storming opening leg in 11:12 to finish half a minute clear of Arena 80’s Fiona Clark with Leah Harris a further 20 seconds back in third place.
Emma Dixon, who is not really back to the form she was showing two years back never the less, stretched that lead to over one minute and Worthing also lost valuable seconds.
Over the final circuit Emma Macready came storming through to retain the title for Worthing in 26:30 with Brighton & Hove’s Phoebe Connolly managing to hang on to the silver medal position in 26:50 ahead of Arena 80’s Emma Rollings who closed to within three seconds.
Tobin was rewarded with the fastest lap time in 11:12 with Macready on 11:17 and Clark on 11:43.
In the six lap Senior men’s race it was Neil Boniface (Horsham Joggers) who led the opening lap with one of just six sub ten minute laps in this year’s race clocking 9:58. Joe Corbett (Chichester) was in second ahead of Max Pickard (Phoenix), Max Dumbrell (Brighton & Hove), Patrick Hough (Lewes) and Luke Cooper (Hastings) all within a space of twenty seconds.
Adam Clark (Hastings) stormed through from sixth place to take the lead on the second leg and his clocking of 9:37, which was to prove the second fastest time of the day, ahead of Howard Bristow (Brighton & Hove) with another sub ten minute run, Dan Stepney (Phoenix) and James Baker (Chichester).
Jon Pepper put the Phoenix team into a ultimate winning lead by half distance ahead of Harry Wen (Chichester), Brighton & Hove’s Tom Clifford and Ryan Hicks (Hastings).
Patrick Acaye, and Josh Guilmant took the Phoenix team well clear, on lap four and five, while their pursuers were scrapping for the minor placings with Chris Bird and Conrad Meagher managing to hold on to second place for Chichester ahead of Brighton & Hove’s Andrew Donno and Tim Lunnon.
The final lap saw Charlie Grice (Phoenix) set off with just the lap record to test him but although he finished some three minutes clear his clocking of 9:31 fell short of club mate Ben Tickner’s lap record. He did however bring the Brighton Phoenix team their fifth successive team victory.
Ashley Witcomb (Brighton & Hove) overhauled Chichester’s Harry Pink to take the silver team medal while Pink was also caught and passed by Matt Bradford (Lewes) who took the bronze medal.
Lewes in fact picked up two of the Young Athletes title taking U13 boy’s from Brighton & Hove and Worthing and the U15 girl’s title from Horsham Blue Star and Brighton Phoenix while Brighton & Hove took the U15 boy’s crown from Crawley and Chichester.
Harmony Cooper (Hastings) and Joe Smith (Crawley) clocked the fastest laps in the U13 races with 6:17 and 6:03 in the girl’s and boy’s races respectively while the U15 age group saw Grace Brock (Lewes) in 6:32 and Ben Collins (Chichester) 5:36 come out on top.
In the Master’s races honours were well spread with Brighton & Hove winning the W40 race and Camilla Bishop (Brighton & Hove) setting the fastest time in 12:23 while Arena 80 took the W50 title with Jane Harrop (Chichester) clocking 12:48.
Crawley took the M40 with their Neil Smith recording 10:42, Horsham Joggers won the M50 title with Jim Garland (Chichester) clocking 11:10 and Brighton Phoenix the M60 in 38:50 and Peter Witcomb (Brighton & Hove) the days fastest lap in 12:24.