» Listings for September 2019

1. GOOD TURNOUT FOR COUNTY CROSS COUNTRY RELAYS

   Posted on 12:00pm Saturday 28th Sep 2019

   The Sussex Cross Country Relay Championships were held at Goodwood, on an area adjacent to the racecourse and saw a good number of teams competing in each of the age group events. The first races of the afternoon were for the Under 13 Boys and Under 13 Girls age groups, where teams of three each ran a lap of 2800m. The Blue Stars Girls team finished in 9^th place with Emma Harrison running 12m34s on the first leg, Olivia Sharpe 11m38s on the 2^nd leg and Lydia Barnett running 12m45s on the last leg. The Boys team saw Isaac Burt lead the team off, running 11m30s, he handed over to Micah Turfrey (12m17s), with Tom Wood running 12m04s to bring the team home in 12^th place.

   The under 15 Boys race, also run over 3 legs of 2800m, saw Dominic Barber lead the off, running 10m46s, he handed over to Charlie Ferris, who ran an excellent 9m44s to gain places, and Reuben Marsden, who also had a good run, saw the team home in 8^th place, running 9m56s for his leg. The Under 17 Men’s team finished just outside the medals taking fourth place, with Ash Williams leading them off, running an excellent 13m25s for the 4000m lap. He handed over to Sam Richards who ran 14m01s, with Charlie Beckley running 16m29s on the final leg.

   Luke Triccas went first for the Senior Men’s team, where teams of 4 ran over stages of 4000m each. Triccas ran 13m27s and handed over to Harry Eaton, who ran the fastest time for the team of 13m05s, Ryan Bowyer took over and ran 14m56s, with David Maclean running 16m45s on the last leg to bring the team home in 6^th place.

   The Barns Green Half Marathon and 10k races held the next day, saw Maxwell Dumbrell dominate the 10k race, leading from the start he ran an impressive 31m59s, with Bradley Burke, despite going off course, finishing 5^th in 38m36s. The Half Marathon saw Harry Eaton turn out again, having run the relays the day before, and have a good run to finish in 12^th place, running 81m52s, whilst Elspeth Turner had an excellent run, to not only finish as 3^rd Woman, but also take the first Over 50 Woman prize, running 86m36s.

2. TWO MEDALS GAINED AT SUSSEX COMBINED EVENTS CHAMPIONSHIPS

   Posted on 12:00pm Sunday 8th Sep 2019

   The Sussex Combined Events Championships, the usual finale to the track season, took place at Sutton Arena in conjunction with the Surrey Championships. The Blue Stars picked up two medals from Sophie Hogton, in the Under 15 Girls Pentathlon and from Phoebe Penston, in the Under 13 Girls Pentathlon. Hogton began her competition by leaping a personal best 4.85m in the Long Jump, and then followed this up with a 75m Hurdles run of 12.64s, she then threw 6.56m in the Shot and cleared 1.29m in the High Jump to set two more personal bests. The final event, the 800m, saw her run 2m53.56s to total 2256 points for the Pentathlon to secure the silver medal just 80 points behind the winner. Penston’s Pentathlon, also saw her start with the Long Jump, where she leapt 4.03m, she followed this with a 13.03s run in the 70m Hurdles and a 5.30m throw in the Shot. She then unfortunately failed to clear a height in the High Jump, which put pressure for her final event the 800m, but showing a tremendous determination she ran 2m45.83s to catch her closest rival to snatch the bronze medal with a total score of 1521 points.

   In the South of England Under 15 Inter Counties held at Oxford, two Blue Stars competed, with Alina Hillicks throwing 28.76m to take 7^th place in the Under 15 Girls Discus, having earlier finished 11^th in the Hammer event with a new club record throw of 27.20m. Emily Hutchinson, competing in the Under 15 Girls High Jump, cleared 1.40m to finish 10^th.                                                                   

3. GOLD FOR SOPHIE AND CHARLIE IN SUSSEX 3K CHAMPIONSHIPS

   Posted on 12:00pm Sunday 1st Sep 2019

   The Sussex 3000m Track Championships took place at K2, Crawley, with Blue Star athletes picking up 3 medals across the various age groups. The Under 15 Boys race saw an intelligent run from Charlie Ferris who having sat in with the leading group took the lead with two laps to go an progressively drew away from the opposition to take the gold medal running a personal best time of 10m12.22s. Reuben Marsden finished in 5^th place in 10m23.84, also a personal best. The Under 15 Girls race saw Sophie Morris also run a sound tactical race to take the lead with just over two laps to go and although strongly challenged over the final 200m, she held on to win in a personal best time of 11m13.55s, which bettered her own club record.

   The Under 17 Men’s race saw Ash Williams pick up a bronze medal, running 9m29.2s, with team mates Sam Richards finishing 9^th (10m20.9s) and Charlie Beckley finishing 12^th (11m12.7s), all running personal bests.

   The Sussex Under 13 League final, also took place on the same day at K2 and saw the Blue Star team finish in 5^th place of the 10 competing Clubs, scoring 226 points, behind winners Crawley (392pts), Brighton & Hove (348pts), Chichester (272pts) and Haywards (268pts). Although missing several key athletes in the Boys team there were several good performances. Kyla Ball continued her excellent season by winning both the High Jump, where she cleared 1.43m, and the Long Jump with a leap of 4.37m. Phoebe Penston took third place in the 70m Hurdles, running 12.73s and another 3^rd place came in the Girls Shot where Ellen Pratt threw 6.68m, with team mate Megan Hulcoop taking 4^th place in the B event (5.58m).  The Boys High Jump saw Theo Ramage clear 1.30m to take 4^th place in the A string, with Tom Easdale finishing 2^nd in the string with 1.25m. Ramage then went on to throw 8.65m in the Shot to finish in 2^nd place in the Shot, whilst in the |Boys Javelin Harry Long threw 24.23m to finish 4^th.