Sussex athletes exceeded all expectations and brought home three more gold medals, another silver and a brilliant seven additional bronzes on the final day of the English Schools championships.
This brought Sussex’s total podium places to 14, with four golds, two silvers and eight bronze medals altogether.
Junior Girl Emilie Oakden had already won the Southern and national titles indoors this season and entered the pole vault competition as the favourite ahead of the number two ranked athlete, her school and club mate Amelia Hatchard. Both girls more than delivered with Oakden vaulting a magnificent personal and championship best of 3.62m to secure the title and elevate her to number three on the All-Time rankings list. Hatchard equalled her best with a height of 3.30m for the silver medal. Their club mate Maddy Bullen came eighth equalling her PB of 3-metres.
The 400m hurdles finals were a source of much joy for Sussex Schools managers and athletes. Inter Boy Pyers Lockwood has been in superb form over the distance all season and he dominated the final from the gun to the finish line to upend the pre-race predictions and take victory in a personal best and UK rankings leading time of 55.08 seconds.
Senior Boy Ben Okeiyi ran an almost one second PB to win the bronze medal in the Senior Boys 400mH race in a time of 55.56s. Ben’s club mate, the Sussex Schools captain Jess Lambert, took another half of a second off her best, and just missed out on a silver medal by thousandths, as she finished in 60.64s, for bronze in the same time given to the second placer.
Junior Boy Bailey Smith was the fastest qualifier for the 200m final where, off some brilliant bend running, he demolished the field, winning by a metre in 22.56s another UK rankings lead.
Bethany Cook has been an English Schools champion in cross-country but has never medalled in a national competition on the track before Saturday. In what was a slow and tactical race, until the last 600 metres, Cook won the battle in the home straight for the bronze medal running a time of 10:08.93.
Moyo Sargent’s run was less dramatic and he was a safe bronze medallist in the Senior Boys 400m in a time of 49.19s. Meanwhile, in a record breaking Junior Girls 75m hurdles race in which Hertfordshire’s Mia McIntosh ran a UK under-15 record, Noa Maoundus blazed through the field, after a sluggish start, to secure the bronze medal by one hundredth of a second in a PB time of 11.30s.
Another Junior Girl to taste success on Saturday was Rachael Wall. In her first English Schools’ she launched her javelin out to a new two metre PB of 38.60m and this secured her the third podium spot.
Joint Sussex Schools team captain, Tash Purchas, has represented the county in five English Schools championships and she has medalled on four occasions. Last year she won the Senior Girls pole vault title, and though not in the same form, she is always a big occasion performer and in her final English Schools she again medalled, bringing home bronze with a vault of 3.70m.
Fourth place can be the most painful position and two of Sussex Schools finest athletes just missed out on podium places on the track by the narrowest of margins. Team captain, Tom Eames, looked to be catching Nottinghamshire’s Luke Duffy in the Senior Boys 1500m, but the latter just held on for bronze in 3:54.29, ahead of Eames 3:54.32. Likewise Senior Girl Olivia McDonald was three-hundredths of a second off a bronze medal in the 1500m steeplechase, finishing in 5:08.19.
Leo Stallard ran a PB of 6:13.11 in the 2000m Steeplechase for fifth place in the Senior Boys race. Abi Packham and Poppy Oliver were both fifth in their respective finals of the Inter Girls 80m hurdles and 300m hurdles in 11.62s and 45.29s.
Inter Girl Millie Noyce, in a change from her normal shot put, was competing in the discus where she came fifth with a throw of 34.25m. Ruby Jerges was fifth in the Inter Girl long jump with a leap of 5.61m. Senior Girl Ellie Farrow ran 2:13.47 in the 800m final for fifth and the Senior Boys matched this position in the 4x100m relay final where they ran 44.20s.
Sussex Schools had several sixth placed athletes. They included Senior Boy Jack Harris in the pole vault with 4.35m, Inter Girls Cleo Tomlinson and Kelsey Sutherland in the long and triple jumps with 5.58m and 11.52m respectively.
The following athletes were seventh in their finals. Tomer Tarragano in the Senior Boys 3000m in 8:39.21. Senior Girl Adeline Preston, with a PB of 11.63m, in the triple jump. Senior Boy Leo Walker with 40.21m PB in the discus and Inter Girl Lois Dooley with a time of 5:16.77 in the 1500m steeplechase.
Friday's javelin gold medallist, Lizzie Korczak, and Pyers Lockwood will now be representing English Schools in the SIAB home international next weekend.
Team Manager Judy Lasis said it was a great weekend: “I am delighted with the Sussex Schools Athletics team this weekend, great performances, great attitude, great effort. We brought back 14 medals and had many top eight finishes. Most importantly the athletes learned what teamwork means and made friends for life in Birmingham 2019.
"I personally would like to thank all the volunteers who made this event happened from the ESAA organising committee to the officials, Birmingham Schools and particularly all the team managers who worked tirelessly and, of course, my team of managers who were brilliant: Tim, Leanne, Trevor, Sue, Hannah, Ollie and Amy."
Read the Day One report HERE.
View all the ESAA Championships results HERE.