Eastbourne Rovers AC are celebrating one of their most successful Sussex Championships ever after excellent performances at the K2 stadium in Crawley last weekend, their commitment to winter training yielding a host of medals and personal bests.
Rovers’ sprinters were in fine form. Nathan Burge gained two silvers in the 100m and 200m, both in personal bests. His 11.83s for the 100m is very impressive at only 13 years of age (a time a lot of seniors would be proud of) and puts him in the top 10 in the South East. Training partner Ethan Howcroft just missed out on the medals but clinched another personal best of 12.25s.
In the longer 300m sprint it was the turn of Oscar Mizen who is shaving tenths of seconds off his time at every outing. He finished with a clear lead for the gold medal in 38.89s which puts him 3rd in the South East.
Oscar, Ethan and Nathan were joined by Jonah Messer for the U15 boys 4x100m relay where they brought home more gold medals (49.34s).
In the U15 girls, Josie Usher leapt a massive 1m48cm in the high jump for another gold and ran PBs in her two sprints. Also in the U15 girls, Jemima Scott was pleased with her 300m race.
U17 Toby Shepherd is finding his form again in the 200m although despite a personal best of 24.3s he had to settle for fourth place.
In the U17 girls Aoife Cherrill was thrilled to break the 14s barrier for her 100m in 13.93s and Zoe Wright’s speed training is showing with her two PBs in the 200m (27.6s) and 300m (45.3s).
It was then the turn of the seniors. Bryn Smith held onto the title of fastest sprinter in Sussex as he took the double gold in 100m and 200m. The fantastic 100m PB of 10.54s ranks him 5th in the South East.
Dylan Brudenell also continues his run of success in the 400m bringing home another gold for the team in 50.95s. Another U20 Thomas Chaffey sprinted down the straight in 12.36s.
For the senior girls Shania Martlew took the silver in her 200m with a PB of 25.46s. Sophie Hutchison improved her 400m by over half a second and Ellen Bregazzi is closing in on the 14s mark for her 100m. Shania and Sophie joined Ellie and Eleanor in the 4x100m where they clinched the bronze medals.
Sprint coach Sue Keen could not have asked for more from her ‘Sprint Squad’ with them either gaining PBs or medals.
Caitlyn Spencer, a member of Dan Sheppard’s sprint squad, achieved excellent bronzes in both the U17 girls 100m (13.14s) and 200m (26.87s).
Chris Voice’s middle distance squad had a great start to the season with nine medals and thirteen new personal bests. Eleanor Strevens started the ball rolling winning the U20 girls 800m in 2:12.64 and followed that up with a win in the U20 girls 400m with a new PB of 57.67. These performances rank her in the top 10 in the South East for both events. Daisy Connor in her first championships on the track finished 1st in the U15 girls 800m (2:20.05) and later in the weekend also ran a PB to win the U15 girls 300m (42.78). In the same age group Freda Pearce finished 2nd in the 1500m taking 20 seconds from her previous best time recording 4:57.86. Not to be outdone by the girls’ efforts, Ilya Korchev finished 3rd in the U17 boys 1500m with a new PB of 4:13.06. Ellie Mclean running the U20 girls 1500m finished 3rd in very hot conditions and also helped the club to bronze in the 4x100m relay. Jonah Messer won gold in the U15 boys 80m hurdles and also ran a PB in the 1500m. Personal bests recorded for other athletes from the squad included Fin Lumber Fry and Ben Wright in the U15 boys 1500m, Fintan Pearce in the U17 boys 800m and Lexie McLean in the U15 girls 800m.
James Jewell, coached by Pete Standen, also ran a PB (4:11.81) in the U20 boys 1500m and several Masters athletes had a great weekend winning the following middle distance medals: Matt Southam (M35 1500m 1st), Juriy Korchev (M40 1500m 3rd), Stuart Pelling (M35 800m 1st) and Richard Davis (M40 800m 1st).
Six young U13 athletes from Jenny Brown’s junior squad took part in the minithon, a competition comprising of three events with points scored and totalled for overall positions. Aidan Pringle was top scorer for the boys with an excellent 4th place, closely followed by Joshua Webster in 7th and Charlie Davey in 11th out a large field of 27 athletes. Georgia Lennard, Grace Luford Brown and Amy Coughlan enjoyed the girls’ minithon gaining valuable experience and several PBs. All three, as well as Charlie, are the youngest in the age group so will be able to build on this over this season and next. Under 15 athlete George Armstrong Smith, also from this squad, gained a bronze in the boys High Jump.
Katy Brown’s hard work with throws coach Liz Brandon paid off as she was Eastbourne’s most prolific medal winner of the weekend with four medals in the U15 girls category. She came away with two silvers on Saturday in Shot, with a PB of 6.92m, and in her new event, Hammer (14.27m) and followed that with two bronzes in Javelin (PB of 19.74m) and Discus (14.13m) on Sunday. U17 Adam Churchyard continues to dominate the discus event and took the gold with a massive throw of over 27m before putting the shot 10m for the silver. Also part of the growing throws group, new Eastbourne athlete Ketan Srivastva threw 34.21m in the senior men’s discus competition. Eastbourne Rovers athletes are now looking forward to league competitions in the next few weeks for all ages from U11 up to Masters. Many of the junior athletes are training for the Sussex Schools championships in mid June where several will be hoping to qualify for the English Schools national championships in early July.
