Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club’s older athletes enjoyed a successful weekend at the British Masters indoor championships at Lee Valley Athletics Centre, North London, returning with a clutch of seven medals, writes Tom Pollak.
Best of the group was the oldest member of the contingent, Anna Garner, who picked up gold in taking the women’s over 60 1500 metres title in 6 minutes 48.79 seconds, winning by more than half-a-minute. She was also down to compete in the 800 and 3000 metres events but was forced to withdraw due to injury.
There was better news of a Hercules Wimbledon athlete who has been out for the last six months with a knee injury. Dominic Bokor-Ingram was taking part in his first competition since competing in the World Masters championships in Malaga last September when he reached the 800m final despite suffering from the injury. Bogor-Ingram picked up two silver medals taking second place in the over 45 400m on Saturday in 54.55 after being the fastest of the qualifiers for the final in winning his heat in 57.34. Then on Sunday, he again took silver in the 800m in 2:07.15.
Lisa Thomas also achieved a silver medal-winning double taking second place in the over 50 400m on Saturday in 65.58 and then again finishing second in the 800m on Sunday in 2:33.88. Alison Murray also took silver in the over 50 pole vault clearing 2.81m while Justin Reid managed to snatch bronze in the over 45 3000m in 9:49.14, beating the fourth finisher by just four-hundredths of a second.
Jonny Cornish was the best Hercules Wimbledon performer in the UK Inter-Counties cross country championships at Prestwold Hall, Loughborough, on Saturday. He led the Oxfordshire team home finishing 62nd of the 293 runners in the senior men’s 10km championship in 35:25. Running for Surrey, Freddie Slemeck and Finn Johnson were 120th and 135th, respectively, in 36:44 and 37:09.
Henry Silverstein was second Surrey finisher in the under 20 men’s 8km championship taking 75th place in 32:36 with clubmate Zac Purnell 91st, and third Surrey runner over the line, in 33:03. Claire Grima was fourth Surrey finisher in the senior women’s 10km race finishing 80th of the 266 runners in 42:58, helping the team to sixth place.
Hercules Wimbledon’s Dimos Evangelidis was among more than 17,000 runners who took part in the Vitality Big Half over 13.1 miles from Greenwich to the Cutty Sark on Sunday. He was 93rd in 72:46.
Hercules Wimbledon’s Tom Cheetham continued his progress towards completing 100 marathons when he finished 14th in the Thames Meander Marathon along the Thames towpath from Kingston to Barnes and back in extremely challenging conditions on Saturday. He finished 14th in three hours 17 minutes while he was aiming at running two minutes faster.
“It was very tough with strong winds all the way along the route to battle against,” said Cheetham.The Thames Meander was his 75th marathon towards his target of completing a century of races over the testing 26 miles 385 yards distance. He has two marathons planned for next month - Brighton on April 14th and the London a fortnight later.
Hercules Wimbledon’s Joe Toomey headed home 534 runners in the Wimbledon Common 5km parkrun on Saturday in 17:31 with teenager Hector Revill fourth in 18:36. Seventeen Hercules Wimbledon runners took part. Gina Galbraith was top woman finisher in Bishop’s Park taking 10th place overall in a personal best of 18:12. Teenager Finlay White was the first of the eight Hercules Wimbledon runners finishing eighth in 18:06.
A trio of Hercules Wimbledon athletes will be in action for London in Saturday’s English Schools cross country championships in Temple Newsam Park, Leeds, on Saturday. Zac Purnell, who was runner-up at Wormwood Scrubs, runs in the senior boys championship, Georgie Clarke, who took the Surrey Ladies League under 15 title is in the intermediate girls race and Millie Doyle is included in the junior girls team.Georgia Hanley is a reserve for the senior girls team.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article