Three golds and three silvers was the haul for Sussex athletes at the English Age Groups championships at Sportscity Manchester over the weekend.
Competing in the U17 age group Crawley’s Jemima Caldwell and Brighton & Hove’s Rachael Wall repeated their one-two result at the English Schools championship, last month. with the Crawley girl throwing 45.28m for victory but Wall creeping a bit closer to her rival with a three-metre personal best effort of 44.66m for the silver medal.
In the U15 80m hurdles Elliott Hanslow repeated his English Schools victory into a 3.0 wind in a fine 11.61s
The other gold came, as would be expected, in the pole vault where Gemma Tutton from Lewes, who has been unbeaten in her age group this year clearing 3.90m for her victory and club mate Emilie Oakden just missing a medal and finished fourth with a season's best of 3.31m.
There were two further silver medals in the U15 group with Alice Howie (Worthing) throwing 45.47m in the hammer competition and Dulcie Yelling 39.22m in the javelin throw. In both cases, they were a little over one metre shy of a winning throw.
In the same age group, Worthing’s Rebecca Roberts missed out on a medal in the discus throw. She threw 30.31m, which was the same distance as Rose-Marie Sprake from Winchester, but Rose-Marie’s second best throw was further than the Worthing girl’s.
In the boys 800m, Joshua Dunne from Chichester took fourth place in 2:02.8s, while there was also a fifth place in the long jump in the same age group. Madeleine Way from Horsham was just one centimetre short of her personal best with 5.29m.
Back to the U17 age group Will Sutton from Crawley was as close as anyone could be without winning a medal when he cleared 1.85m in the high jump, the same height as two other athletes but lost out on the count back and was placed equal fourth.
There was sixth place in the triple jump for Brighton & Hove’s Amber Purcell with 10.94m and club mate Josh Clarke placed seventh in the U17 javelin throw with a personal best of 50.29m. In the 400m Lewes AC's Rowan Pearson reached the final and placed eighth clocking 51.30s.