Apart from the Under 13s and U15 Girls events the entries for this year’s Sussex Combined events Championships were very disappointing at Carlshalton over the weekend.
Lack of support in the older age groups in recent years has meant that the event has been merged with the Surrey event who also suffered with poor entries.
A splendid number of 18 completed the U13 girl’s pentathlon event with Ella Hannyngton (Horsham), who has certainly been the dominating U13 athlete in Sussex this season scoring 2163 points but she was only forty points clear of a determined Erin Harnett (East Grinstead) who totalled 2123.
Adam Lindo (Crawley), who like Hannyngton has had an excellent season, had a more comfortable victory in the boy’s pentathlon, scoring 1838 points to Horsham’s Austin Emens who scored 1410 where nine athletes completed the event.
Crawley also won both U15 pentathlons where pole vaulter Natasha Purchase took the girls title totalled 2513 points after a close battle with Alyssa White (Chichester), 2487 and Tom Pitts took the boys crown with 2484 points to Brighton & Hove’s James Booth who scored 2322.
There were not any finishers in the U17 competitions or the U20 women though to be fair two Sussex athletes will be competing in the English Schools U19 next weekend while Jack Milnthorpe (Horsham) was the only competitor in the men’s U20 decathlon totalling 4076 points.
The only senior or either sex was Joe Morris from Eastbourne who scored 5260 points.
The Masters pentathlons were won by Brian Slaughter (Eastbourne) 3266 points and Catriona Gardiner (Brighton & Hove) 2479 points.