The sun shone for two days over Manchester as the Sussex Schools team delivered one of its best-ever performances at the English Schools Track and Field Championships. Our athletes brought home six golds, five silvers and three bronze medals, and overall, there were 17 personal bests, 23 English School standards and 10 national standard performances.
Alice Howie (Davison/ WDH) entered the Junior Girls' Hammer circle as the stand-out favourite, with her under 15 UK rankings lead some eight metres ahead of the next athlete. However, it is one thing to be the favourite and another to deliver the goods, but that is what Howie did. She threw a fantastic personal best (PB) of 51.44m. This won gold by a massive margin of nearly 10 metres and also smashed the 14-year-old Sussex record, held by Hastings Louisa James, which was set when Howie was only six months old!
Another Junior Girl, Grace Tuesday (Uckfield College/ LEW), has also had an outstanding season. Tuesday went into the competition as the fastest athlete in the field following her recent Sussex AA U15 record and justified the ranking with a 2:12.23 win, almost 1.5 seconds ahead of the silver medallist.
This was Ruby Jerges (Brighton College/ CRA) fifth and final English Schools long jump competition and she ended her run in style, taking top honours in the Senior Girls' event with a gold medal-winning leap of 5.84m.
Last year Dulcie Yelling (Varndean/ B&H) was the silver medallist in the Junior Girls' javelin competition. This time her main rival, Ayesha Jones, was on international duty at the European Under 18s in Israel, and Dulcie had one goal - to upgrade her medal. When she launched her javelin out to a personal best of 45.98m, she secured her place on top of the podium.
Miles Waterworth (Brighton College / PHX) won the national indoor U17M title over 800m in February, with daylight between him and the second placer. At Manchester, the result was much tighter and came down to a sprint finish in the home straight, with Waterworth winning in 1:53.94 and a mere 0.7 seconds separating him from the sixth athlete. Yelling and Waterworth will now represent England at the home nations Schools' international this weekend.
In 2019 Emilie Oakden and Amelia Hatchard (both BHASVIC/ LEW) were the Junior Girls' gold and silver pole vault medallists. They returned as Seniors, and Oakden vaulted 3.60m to secure the top spot again, and Hatchard's 3.50m put her back on the podium as the bronze medallist.
For Senior Boy Will Sutton (Richard Collyer/ CRA), a high jump of 1.95m was enough to seal his silver medal. Sutton has another ESAA championship to look forward to as he will be contesting the Combined Events finals later this year.
In the Junior Boys' age group, there were three more silver medallists. Novice high jumper Bruno Cina (Steyning School) has only two competitions listed on the rankings sites. They are the Sussex Schools Champs, where he jumped 1.65m to gain a place in the team, and now his seven-centimetre improvement at Manchester to clinch the silver medal with 1.72m. That is the beauty of the Schools' pathway when a young athlete discovers a talent for an event they had never considered and then performs brilliantly on a national stage!
A talented all-rounder, Braimoh Busari (Imberhorne/ CRA), has only fully focussed on the pole vault this year, and what a year it has been! He achieved an eight-centimetre PB to win the silver medal in the Junior Boys' competition. Meanwhile, in the same age group Braimoh's clubmate Harry Long (Tanbridge House) threw the javelin 45.65m, a whole 3.5 metres further than ever before, for another precious silver.
Stella Kalman (Burgess Hill/ B&H) was another young athlete who lifted her game to defy her pre-competition ranking. She improved her long jump personal best by five centimetres, leaping to 5.33m in the Junior Girls' event, to capture the silver medal.
There was déjà vu for Stella's clubmate, Amber Purcell (Davison), who triple jumped to a bronze medal in the Inter Girls' competition with a hop, skip and jump of 11.14m. It was a double as Amber was the bronze medallist in the same age group and event last year.
Senior Boy Cameron Wells (Sackville/ LEW) in his third and final appearance at the English Schools improved five places from last year to bag a bronze medal in the pole vault with a PB equalling 4.35m.
Sussex had three podium near misses. In the Senior Boys' triple jump, Massi Campbell (BHASVIC/ B&H) was 4th (14.09m), and in the Junior Girls' pole vault, Yuna Hadlow and Imogen Clarke (both Priory/ LEW) tied for 4th after clearing 2.70m.
There were fifth-place finishes for Senior Boy Oliver Beach (Cardinal Newman/ CHI) in the discus (42.21m), and Charlie Fisher (Worthing High/ B&H), who made it through the heats and semis of the Junior Boys' 100m and ran 11.50s in the final. Freya Brennand (Worthing College/ B&H) was fifth in the Senior Girls hammer.
In the Inter Girls' discus and pole vault Abigail Wamala (Christ's Hospital) and Amalie Smith-Jarman (Roedean) respectively were 6th (29.83m/ 3.25m), as was Biba Mills (Ardingly/ CRA) in the Junior Girls' javelin (35.47m). Dillan Tierney (Richard Collyer/ CRA) was 7th in the Senior Boys' Pole Vault (4m), and Rebecca Roberts (St Oscar Romero/ WDH) was 7th in the Junior Girls' discus (29.64m). In addition, Inter Girl Stephanie Shaw (Oriel/ CRA) was 7th in the 1500m in 4:36.66.
Maddy Bullen (Varndean/ LEW) was 8th in the Senior Girls' pole vault (3.20m), and Rachael Wall (BHASVIC/ B&H) fought through migraine for 8th in the Senior Girls' javelin (40.42m). Dylan Hanslow (Thomas Bennett/ CRA) and Jack Wadman (Seaford/ CHI) were 8th in the 2000m S/C (6:15.76) and Shot Put (13.36m), respectively. Amelia Cox (Hazelwick/ CRA) was 8th in the Senior Girls 1500m Steeplechase in 5:17.38.
The medal haul exceeded all expectations. In the lead-up to the competition, two of the county's leading gold medal contenders - pole vaulter Gemma Tutton and sprinter Timi Esan had to withdraw from the Champs due to international under-20 commitments. Despite this setback, the Sussex ESAA team excelled, and not just in the arena.
Team Leader Judy Lasis described the squad as "amazing," She said: "They were so responsive to the team managers. They all bought into the fact that we were a team and not just a collection of individuals. Their support and respect for each other and their environment, both in triumph and despair, were lovely to see. They even received praise from hotel staff and guests who commented that they were a credit to us! All the team managers really enjoyed taking them."
Only the top eight athletes score for the team awards along with all English Schools and national standard performances. We await the final team results. However, you can see the full event results here.
Main photos by Andy Cox