Brighton & Hove’s Bethany Close and Crawley’s James Lasis both repeated their silver medals winning performances of last year in the British Universities Championships at Bedford over the weekend.
On a pretty bleak weekend for Sussex athletics Close, the BUCS Indoor champion was unable to contain Lucy Hatton from Leicester, a good weekend for Leicester, who clocked 13.21 to the Sussex girl’s 14.00.
Close also managed to make the final of the 200 metres finishing seventh after a tiring weekend in 26.76 but she had recorded a PB when winning her heat in 24.83 which sees her sit just outside the Sussex Top Ten of All time.
In the discus throw Lasis was only a touch away from his best throwing a splendid 48.01m but these two were, I believe, the total of Sussex medals this year.
Nicole Taylor (Brighton University) from Crowborough, who missed most of last season through injury, put up a spirited battled in the 2000 steeplechase to take third place in 6:55.20, only a few seconds outside her PB.
James's brother Matt Lasis just missed a podium place in the Hammer, coming fourth in his first competition of the season with a throw of 60.41m. Samuel Heawood (Worthing) slipped one place from last year to also finish fourth in the shot putt with 13:58 having putt 14.10m in qualifying while James Taylor from Horsham cleared a PB of 1.94m to take seventh place in the high jump and Rachel Gifford (Worthing) did well to make the final of the 5,000m placing 12th in 18:31.43 after qualifying with 18:16.49.
Youth Development League.
Sussex clubs were without a team win in the Upper Age group of the Youth Development Leagues on Sunday.
At Harrow, in Premier Division two the Crawley team finished second to a very strong Norfolk team who scored 628 with Crawley having a fine battle with the home team before snatching second place 496 points to 479. This however was the only bright spot as far as Sussex teams were concerned.
In South West One at Southampton Team Sussex and Brighton & Hove also had a hard battle but were both squeezed out of contention when Winchester, Kingston and Southampton filled the first three places.
Brighton & Hove were fifth with 489 points and Team Sussex seventh with 376.5.
There was another seventh place for Horsham Blue Star at Ashford and Chichester’s results have not yet been published.