Sussex athletes collected three medals in the Brighton Marathon and 10km races on a very sunny Sunday but there was to be no gold medal.
Brighton Phoenix’s Jon Pepper went into Sunday’s race as the fastest on paper and he was on line to become the first Sussex winner of this race until the closing stages.
It was then that Stuart Hawkes (Tipton) took off and moved clear to win in 2:27:36 and the tiring Pepper was also caught and passed by Epsom’s Ollie Garrod in almost the last gasp to snatch the silver medal in 2:31:33 with Pepper hanging on to take the bronze medal in 2:31:57.
James Baker from Chichester came home in sixth place in 2:33:16, the first M40 to finish and Neil Smith (Crawley) 12th in 2:41:36.
Al Silvester (A80) 15th in 2:42:32, Adam Tribe and Philip Stevenson (Brighton & Hove) 17th and 23rd respectively in 2:44:23 and 2:46:43 while Matt Bradford (Lewes) was 26th in 2:47:12 and club mate Lewis Sida 28th in 2:47:10.
In the women’s event Helen Buller from Worthing scooped another bronze medal clocking 2:51:22 behind Ipswich’s Helen Davies who took gold in 2:42:40 and Hayley Munn (Winchester) 2:46:00 while Sue Fry (Hailsham) finished 11th in 3:02:58 and W50 runner Cathy Ulliott (Brighton & Hove) was 28th in 3:17:49.
In the 10k races that preceded the main event Finn McNally (Phoenix) finished a fine second in 30:33 behind Matt Sharp (Hercules) who clocked 30:13 with Paul Whittaker (Southend) clocking 30:44 in third place.
Crawley’s James Westlake filled fifth place in 31:11, Brighton & Hove’s James Turner 32:19 in seventh place and Robb Skelton (Phoenix) after a lengthy layoff through injury was tenth in 32:43.
Katrina Wooton (Coventry) took the women’s title in 32:43 ahead of Lily Partridge (Aldershot) 33:52 while Helena Tobin (Brighton & Hove was the leading Sussex runner in seventh place after a good battle with Arena 80 veteran Caroline Hoyte clocking 35:43 to 35:57.
Crawley’s Surrey runner Hannah Brooks finished ninth in 36:07.
Times suggest that conditions were a little tougher than expected.
As the promoters did not include club affiliations in the first set of results I am not sure that I have identified all the leading Sussex runners.
If you have any queries or want more information regarding this post, please Email Reg Hook.