There were one gold and two silvers for the Sussex Schools athletes at the South East Schools Combined Events championships at Reading on Sunday.
In the senior (U19) girls Heptathlon both Katie Garland (Bexhill) and Beth Crocker (Hurst) carried their overnight firsst and secfond placings forward and even stretched their leads over their rivals.
Garland added a 5.70m long jump and 27.72m javelin throw and a 2:26.7s 800 metres to yesterday’s effort to bring her total up to 4811 points, a personal best and fourth place on the Sussex All Time bests list.
Crocker also move up to sixth place on the Sussex All time list when totalling 4767 after leaping 5.46m, throwing a PB of 31.02m and another PB of 2:24.3 for the final 800m.
Another silver medal came to Sussex when Amber Anning strung together a fine series of performances in the Junior (U15) Pentathlon including PB's in the High Jump 1.57m, Long Jump 5.57m and 800m 2:27.3. She also improved Worthing’s Emma Perkins’s 15 year old County record with a fine tally of 3252 points. Perkins had set the record two months before Anning was born but it must be remembered that she was using a slightly heavier shot.
Matt Smith (Blatchington Mill) held on to his seventh place in the Intermediate (U17) Octathlon with a personal best total of 4378 adding a 15.3s hurdles, 1.69m high jump, 10.68m Shot putt and 4:54.4s 1500 metres to his Saturday performances.
A few years back Hastings athlete Elise Lovell was a regular member of the Schools Combined events teams. This weekend Lovell has been selected to represent Great Britain at the European Cup Combined Events Super League at Aubagne in France. She will compete alongside GB teammate and Crawley athlete Jo Rowland