The skies were blue and the sun shone down as the leading young athletes from 13 counties converged on Kingsmeadow stadium in Kingston for the annual South of England Derek Crookes Under 13 Inter-Counties meet. Last year our boys were seventh: this year they were originally given fourth place before this was amended a day later to fifth, the same as the girls.
The South is the strongest region in the UK and the Sussex team had only one outright winner, however there were many outstanding results, personal bests (PB’s) and top three placings.
It was Horsham’s Ruby Jerges who scored maximum points in the B string Long Jump with a massive leap of 4.88m, just one centimetre below her best. Jerges also put in another sub 12s performance in the 70mH A race with an 11.98s clocking.
Beth Cook (Bodyworks) is better known as a triathlete and cross-country runner. At Kingston she was tackling the 1500m for the first time and was racing alongside the UK’s second and third ranked athletes. Cook ran tactically, keeping the front-runners in sight without getting sucked into running too fast. She held her own down the home straight, coming third in a sparkling debut of 4:53.19s.
In the girls’ 200m A race there was another fine run from Brighton’s Ruby Anning. Drawn in the outside lane, thus running blind – she took 1.5 seconds off her PB coming third in 27.2s, which takes her to tenth in the National rankings.
Daniel Tewogbade (CRA) and Seb Wallace (HBS) were two of the busiest athletes at the competition taking part in four events each. Their contribution to the boys’ team score was immense. Daniel jumped a PB of 1.50m for third in the high jump, a position he matched in the 200m taking half a second off his best with a time of 26.28s. Meanwhile Seb was second in the Long Jump with 5.07m and in what was one of the highlights of the day, ran a stunning leg in the relay to handover to Ori Bartle (LEW) before Daniel brought the team in second in 52.05 – third place overall.
In the javelin Luke Twigger (B&H) held his form, throwing 35.70m for third place in the A event. UK rankings leader Anouska Fairhurst (LEW) was also third in the girls javelin with 29.79m. Horsham’s Ruby Walker was second in the girls B shot with 7.76m and Ollie Beach (CHI) threw a PB of 8.33m for fourth in the boys event.
The high standard of competition across the day is illustrated by Crawley’s Dylan Hanslow’s 3.5 seconds PB in the 800m. Hanslow ran 2:18.35 - the fastest time in his age group in Sussex this year. However it was only good enough for seventh in this race which saw the UK’s top ranked U13 boy - Jaden Kennedy - of Herne Hill win in 2:09.00 and a further five of the top ten best times set in his wake.
There were numerous other strong performances by Sussex athletes. See the full results HERE
By Melanie Anning
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