A week after their gold medal-winning triumphs at the All England Schools Championships, Katie Snowden and Julien Allwood again produced winning performances, this time in their England international debuts at the British Schools Home International for U17s in Antrim in Northern Ireland. 

In the U17 women's 800m Katie beat highly rated Scottish runner Sarah Kelly and London and England team mate Georgia Bell into 2nd and 3rd places in a time around 2 min 8 seconds.

At the end of the afternoon Katie was also a key member of the winning England team in the 4 x 300m relay.

Julien Allwood meanwhile defied unhelpful weather conditions to produce a winning triple jump of 14.45m, only 2cm short of his legal personal best and HHH club U17 record set earlier this summer.

The club had another representative at this meeting, as also racing for England was Funto Fubunmi-Alade, who replicated her 3rd placing from last weekend's English Schools in the U17 women's 200m.

Elsewhere, Herne Hill Harriers men's team placed 2nd in the British Athletics League 10 in 100 Cup semi final fixture at Hendon, a match that crams 10 track & field events for both men and women into 100 minutes and then closes with medley relays for both genders.

Pitted against out British League rivals Blackheath & Bromley and Thames Valley Harriers, Herne Hill Harriers were beaten by Blackheath on this occasion. However a fighting performance from the HHH team saw them pip Thames Valley Harriers into 3rd place by just one point and leaves HHH with an outside chance of qualifying for the final if they prevail in a paper match for 2 final places between the runners up in each of the 6 semi final matches.

 

HHH event winners were Toby Adeyemi in the 400m, by a margin of just one hundredth of a second, and long jumper Paul Oluyemi, who was a class above his opposition with 3 of his 6 jumps exceeding 7m. Jeffrey Ocrah was very narrowly beaten into 2nd place in the 100m, while Thomas Ashby missed out on winning the shot putt when overtaken in the last of 6 rounds.

Tim Elsey confirmed his recent good form in the 1500m with another 2nd place performance. Blade Ashby, Didier Sorel and Byron Robinson all did well to place 3rd in their respective events, while Didier added an optional extra when filling in at the discus circle.

 

Match result: Blackheath & Bromley Harriers 85, Herne Hill Harriers 72, Thames Valley Harriers 71, Epsom & Ewell Harriers 60, Havering Mayesbrook 20, Basildon AC 9.

The Herne Hill Harriers were also represented by a total of 7 club members at the Aviva World Trials and UK Champs in Birmingham. Robert Graham and Dele Onifade did well to progress from the heats of the 100m, with Robert running a season's best of 10.69.

Both, however struggled against headwinds and strong opposition in their semi finals, while Michael Dyer suffered early elimination from the 800m heats and Denise Osei was similarly unable to qualify beyond her 100m heats.

Paul Oluyemi was the wrong side of clearing 7m in placing 12th in the long jump, while Sammy Mensah will have been disappointed to run below his recent superb form in the heats of both the 400m on the Friday evening and the 200m on the Sunday afternoon, although he did succeed in parading our famous hooped colours to a BBC TV audience in his 200m heat.

Second claim member and HHH club marathon champion Benedict Whitby ran the 5000m in the colours of his first claim club, but was over 30 seconds outside his recent fine run at the same distance in a British Milers Club meeting at Stretford.