Another busy week of activities for the club. Over the weekend our juniors were in action at the South of England Under 17/U15/U13 championships at Kingston. This is a meeting we have struggled to get people to in the past so it was great to see 29 of our juniors not only taking part and competing against the best in the south but also making finals and coming home with medals. Our sprinters excelled taking home three of the 12 titles on offer.
On the Saturday Dante Legister cruised through the first two rounds before another blistering start took him clear of the field and a comfortable win in 10.82. Emily Cadman had a tough schedule with two 100m rounds and then two 200m rounds. In the 100 she took silver in 13.09 but in the 200 showed her strength to beat the 100m winner and triumph in another PB of 26.79.
On the Sunday Dejaune Lingard had an equally convincing win in the under 17 200m storming away from the field in the home straight whilst in the Under 15 age group Daniel Nyong battled a tight hamstring to win the 300m in 38 seconds.
Over the longer distances and hurdles the standard was also extremely high but despite this Reuben Chandler managed to pick up a silver in the Under 17 400 hurdles whilst Hannah Hopper secured silver in the 5000m walk.
Dejaune Lingard winning SEAA Under 17 200m at Kingston
In the field the `Bridge' family had a good day with Hannah taking silver in the under 17 women's event with a huge PB of 14.17 (up from 13.06) whilst younger brother Michael took gold with a a put of 11.95 in the final round of his event. With both athletes throwing the 3k shot this year we wonder how much sibling rivalry is going on at home! Our other field event medallist was Chichi Cooper who broke the 11m barrier recording 11.06 for 3rd in the triple jump.
Michael Bridge, Under 13 Shot Gold
At the other end of the age scales Warwick Dixon continues to amaze winning the M85 discus title at the British Masters championships in a new British record of 23.84 and then adding the hammer title for good measure with a throw of 29.19.
Warwick Dixon, 86 years young!
On Thursday our Olympic finalist and medallist Daryll Neita visited the track and training promptly ground to a halt for most groups. Daryll reminisced over how she had started out at Sutcliffe as an under 13 and chatted and had photos taken with athletes young and old.
The previous weekend we held our first post COVID social event with a a BBQ at the clubhouse. the premises are now fully licensed allowing the bar to open and just short of 70 people attended with the highlight being the tug of war competitions. The clubhouse is available for booking by members, e mail Dave Reader - mr.david.reader@gmail.com for more information.
Looking ahead the Cross County dates for the Kent League have now been published - First fixture is at Swanley Park on Saturday October 16th more details at www.kcaa.org.uk.