Weekly Update - 16th July 2025

Juniors excel at English Schools

This was probably the busiest weekend of the year for the club, reports Mick Bond, with our over 35’s competing in the Masters match at Tonbridge on Friday evening, whilst our juniors were at the English Schools Championships Friday and Saturday and then we hosted a Southern Athletics League for the senior team at Sutcliffe on Sunday!

English Schools Championships, Birmingham (Fri. 11th/Sat. 12th July)

A hot and sticky Birmingham hosted the annual English Schools Championships and our biggest contingent of athletes ever led to our best ever performance. Overall, we had 22 members competing of whom 15 made finals on the track or top 8 in the field. On top of this we came away with a remarkable four individual golds, three silver and one bronze medals.

Under 15 Girls: Charlotte Foster and Miya Cook had both been selected despite being bottom of the age group and in Charlotte's case, with a late August birthday, was probably the youngest competitor there. Miya equipped herself well, finishing 5th in the shot and whilst short of her best the experience will put her in good stead to challenge for medals next year. Charlotte battled well in the 1500m heats and again was a good learning experience.

Under 17 Women: Training partners Tess Hepple and Nia Thomas both made it to the finals of the 80m hurdles with Tess running a PB and Nia being fractionally outside hers. Like Miya and Charlotte they have another year in the age group. Emily Cadman was trying for her 4th English Schools title in a row and going into the final was one of the top five girls from the heats all running between 24.1s and 24.4s. A poor lane draw in the final (Lane 9) was just enough to give the others the advantage and she had to settle for 5th place. Second claimer Phoebe Folarin cleared 1.57 in the high jump for 11th place for someone who only really started training a couple of months ago there is lots more to come.

Under 20 Women: Lily Gayle won the Under 17 hurdles last year but was now up against older girls, bigger hurdles and longer spacings. Despite all this she excelled herself fighting to the line to grab silver with a last-minute dip running 14.30s into one of the strongest head winds of the day. Training partner Keziah Olaleye had been to the championships four times before but never made it out of the heats and this was her last chance to make a final. A typically gutsy performance got her through, then another fight to the line secured 6th place next day and the chance to say she is an English Schools finalist.

Amelia Lawrence was running in the 1500m at her first English Schools champs and had to contend with a very tactical race. With no one willing to take the pace the first 1000m was a slow jog before a huge surge of pace at the start of the last lap. Amelia placed herself well as the race ran on and was in the right place at the bell to cover the break but just got edged out of the qualifying places at the finish line. Second claimer Qi-Chi Ukpai was a class apart in the tripe jump winning by nearly 20cm in 12.13m.

Under 15 Boys: Kendrick Onolememen and Obinna Aniebo only joined the club at the beginning of the summer, but their huge physical talent combined with some excellent work by our throws coaches quickly moved them up the national rankings in shot , discus and hammer. Both were picked for the discus event and excelled. Obinna led into the final round of the competition with a PB of 49.60m but then Kendrick found 50.11m in the last round to take gold. Obinna should be back next year in the older age group whereas Kendrick is only in year 8 at school should be back to defend his title. Our other thrower in this age group was Stanley Trofimczuk who competed in the hammer finishing 6^th with 40.92m but will be frustrated as he had a best of 49.50m going into the competition. Jovanni Lindsey lowered his 200m PB to 23.22s just missing out on making the final.

Under 17 Men: The strength of this section of the club right now is unprecedented. Seven of the club’s athletes made either the Kent or London teams and between them picked up two golds, one silver and a bronze. Hans Nmaju led from the front to dominate the 100 hurdles running a 0.3 second PB over the weekend and has the only sub-13 second time in the UK this year – 12.83s. Elijah Olaleye was hot favourite for the 400 hurdles, but his final didn’t go quite to plan, and he had to work really hard to surge through the field on the home straight to take gold. Daniel Obike cleared 1.97m to claim silver in the high jump whilst Michael Bridge added nearly half a metre to his PB throwing over 17m for the first time to take bronze in the shot.

In the Javelin Freddie Luckett was ranked number one in country with a 63m throw earlier in the year but a shoulder injury in May had meant very little training and he had to be satisfied with 9^th place ten metres down on his best. Josh Welling and Ekene Ogbonna both competed well in the 400 and 100 hurdles respectively but didn’t make it out of the heats. Hans, Elijah and Daniel now travel to Derby this weekend to compete for England in the Schools international.

Under 20 Men: Michael Somade-Makinde was our only representative in the is age group and despite running 10.88s in the 100m he did not make it through the final.

Left: Coach Mick Bond pictured with sprint hurdlers Lily Gayle & Hans Nmaju

Right: Throwers Obinna Aniebo and Kendrick Onolememen

Overall an amazing set of results and a big well done to all the coaches involved along with a thankyou to Dartford Grammar School for Boys for sending six of the boys including five of the medallists our way!

Southern Counties Veterans League (Kent) #4, Tonbridge (Fri. 11th July)

The men produced a very solid effort covering all events, finishing 4th on the night and consolidating 4th place overall in Division 1.

Four wins - a double in the 1500m M35A and M35B. - Ed Adigwe 4:20.6s and Ben Shearer 4:26.9s respectively - we are strong in this event. Felix Ananda Jehanmohan continued his fine form with 11.37m in M35 shot. Mark Culshaw (M55) beating the M35 2000m walk field by over a minute and half - 11:52.4s.

Ed Adigwe and Ben Shearer

The women produced another dominate win, strengthening their place at the top of division 2, and surely are on route for promotion back to Division 1.

Nine wins - W35B 200m - Katie Sanders, who had planned to take it easy, stormed ahead in the outside lane to win in 33.3s. Julie Backley kept her run of wins going, taking the W50 1500m in 5:56.3s. Natalie Mann (W40) won both the W35 shot (7.83m) and javelin (19.78m), Sophie Johnson, returning from injury, and Christine Bond took the honours in the W35 and W50 high jump respectively. Joanna Parke produced a PB to win the W35 long jump with 3.74m and it was a double win in the 2000m race walk for Stephanie Dann and Rose Baker.

Southern Athletics League, Eltham (Sun. 13th July)

This was the third out of four fixtures in the SAL series but despite having home advantage we still didn’t get our first win of the season, reports Mick Bond. A solid third place out of six could easily be first with a few more athletes!

Individual highlights; Chris Loudon (pictured) who just seems to get better and better with age front run the 1500m to break the 4 minute barrier for the first time in 3:59.51s. Chris’ 40^th birthday was last March.

Amelia Lawrence “got back on the horse” after her disappointment of not making the finals at English Schools and front ran a 4:37.56s 1500m (just 0.6 outside her best) to show what good shape she is in

Sophie Fenner set three PB’s in the hammer edging her best up to 38.77m.