The second day of the Sussex Track and Field championships produced some more fine competition and some championship records but before dealing with those let us re-track to Saturday where further investigation produced some more record breaking performances.
In the senior 200 metres Jason Hussain’s winning time of 21.2s equalled his own three year old record. It is however worthy of note that any senior record, particularly in the more traditional events is a record of true value. Hussain followed his fine run on Saturday with a 10.9s clocking to win the 100m on Sunday, a sprint double that he has achieved several times before.
In the U20 100m Anna Short (Brighton & Hove) stormed to victory in a record equalling 12.1s while Grace Baker (Hastings) clocked 4:37.9s to improve the five year old U20 1500m best performance.
Probably the best of all was a brilliant run from Orla Brothers (Crawley) in the U17 300m where she broke the nine year record with 40.0s but even better she had clocked 39.6s in her heat, which had already demolished the previous record but was also the fastest time by any British U17 athlete so far this season. Like club mate Hussain Brothers went on to take the 200m title on Sunday after a fine battle with Chichester’s Sophie-Anne Haigh clocking 25.4s to Sophie’s 25.6s, both standard runs.
On Sunday it was certainly record breaking time in the pole vault when three athletes improved the Championship bests.
Bill Saunders smashed the 1988 U15 best of 3.40m by launching himself over 3.70m.
This was the same height as that cleared by Jade Brewster (Horsham) in the U20 event to improve her own year old record. Before she started vaulting on Sunday however Livvy Connor (Lewes) had already removed her mark when clearing 3.60m.
While all this record breaking was going on at one end of the track the hammer throwers were producing a fine throwing at the other end.
Louisa James from Hastings was a little disappointed with her fine throw of 58.02m which fell a little short of her year old championship best but in a brilliant battle in the U17 girl’s event the first three were separated by little more than one metre and all three bettered the English Schools standard.
Vicki Pellett (Crawley) eventually emerged the winner throwing 45.7m with Larisa Carter (Lewes) throwing 45.49m and Rosie Forrester (Worthing) 44.48m in second and third place.
Lotte Hoare (Crawley) also set a schools standard in the U20 throw with 44.74m while Hannah Brockbank (Brighton & Hove) also set a standard when winning the U15 event with 36.48m and she went on to set another standard when winning the discus throw later in the afternoon with 28.75m. No hammer records but it must be remembered that Louisa James had set high quality mark as she progressed through the age groups.
Ben Hawkes (Worthing) also achieved a hammer standard when throwing 41.53m U15 event.
On the track Finley Bigg (Phoenix), who has been playing around with some 800 metres races this season returned to the 400 metres and although challenged by 800m expert and club mate Spencer Thomas he held on well to clock a personal best and schools standard of 49.2 to Thomas’s 49.3s.
There too many standards Schools standards set during the weekend to mention everyone.
About thirty were gained and there will be more opportunities between now and the Sussex Schools Championships on 13th June, also to be held at the K2 centre.