This weekend sees another day of Sussex Championships with the Under 13 and Under 11 Quadkid’s events at Withdean beginning at 11.00 am on Saturday.
Before that however, the English Schools Championships are being held at Manchester and Sussex Schools will be well represented. Team manager Leanne Buxton is optimistic that there may be a few medals, some gold, coming back to Sussex.
This year, instead of the championships being held over two days and teams staying overnight in local accommodation parents have to undertake the transport of their charges and, where possible, travel back home that same day. As the event is being held in Manchester most Sussex athletes will have to stay locally one night.
To ease this the Senior (U19) athletes events are being held on Friday the Intermediate (U17) group on Saturday and the Junior (U15) on Sunday.
More than half of the 66 Sussex team members are in the senior group this year, but total entries have been restricted to enable all events to be completed, in one day, with all field events being straight finals and only the sprints being decided by heats and finals.
It is difficult this year, with limited competition and no county able to hold normal championships to forecast the form of athletes. On Friday Lizzie Korczak (Brighton College) will certainly be looking to a medal in the senior javelin throw. If she wins it will be her fourth title in a row. While Saturday’s potential star is likely to be Priory’s Gemma Tutton in the intermediate pole vault. Gemma has already rewritten the Sussex Senior Women's record with her 4.10m clearance this year. On Sunday there is very little form to help pick the medallists unless we look to another javelin thrower, Dulcie Yelling from Varndean, to keep the Sussex flag flying.
On Saturday at Withdean we would normally be able to try to spot the stars of the Sussex Schools events in a couple of years time. Unfortunately, the championships will not be open to spectators, just parents or coaches and, of course, the officials who will be busy making sure the meeting runs smoothly.