Sussex athletes have delivered a series of notable performances over the past week, including a Commonwealth Games medal, a World Under-20 final place and a long-standing county record being broken.
Brighton Phoenix’s Toby Harries helped England secure silver in the mixed 4x400m relay at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. Harries ran the opening leg in the heats, combining with Ben Jefferies, Laviai Nielsen and Poppy Malik as England won their race to progress. He switched to the third leg for the final, where he joined Jefferies, Yemi Mary John and Lina Nielsen.
The quartet clocked 3:11.58 to finish behind Jamaica and claim England’s final athletics medal of the Games.
Two other Sussex athletes also represented England in Glasgow. Lewes AC’s Gemma Tutton cleared 4.10m to finish fifth in the women’s pole vault final, while Brighton Phoenix’s Archie Davis placed eighth in his mile heat in 3:57.98.
Away from Glasgow, Brighton Phoenix’s Almi Nerurkar produced one of the standout Sussex performances of the season in Belgium on Saturday.
Nerurkar ran 15:11 for 5000m, taking 18 seconds off the Sussex women’s record set by Sonia McGeorge 30 years ago.
Meanwhile, Brighton & Hove AC’s Ava James has reached the 3000m steeplechase final at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Oregon.
James competed in the second heat in the early hours of Thursday morning and finished eighth, securing the final qualifying place. With the first eight athletes from each heat progressing, she will now line up in Friday’s final.
The results complete a strong few days for Sussex athletes competing at Commonwealth and world level.