Chichester athletes Brown and Roe jump to it for national success

The Chichester Runners’ star’s high jump of 1.73m, a personal best, secured the silver medal in the under-20 women’s event.

Brown, still just 17 and now competing with athletes up to two years older, jumped with great confidence and was one of only three in a field of 15 to clear 1.65.

A single failure at 1.69m left her third but a first-time clearance of 1.73 promoted her to second. A measure of Brown’s progress is that she was beaten only by a GB youth athlete who has qualified for the high jump at the 2012 World Youth Indoor Championships.

The indoor season has been highly successful for Brown with silvers for both high jump and combined events at the South of England championships, plus sixth place in the national combined events championships in Sheffield.

The Chichester High School sixth-former’s outdoor season will focus on high jump and heptathlon.

Brown’s main target for 2012 is to improve on her third places for high jump at the 2010 and 2011 English Schools’ Championships and better her fifth place in 2011 at the English schools combined event finals.

In the British Universities indoor championships at Sheffield, Chichester’s up-and-coming decathlete Charlie Roe set three personal indoor bests.

His 1.95m high jump improved his best to make the final of the event while a 6.50m long jump and a shot putt of more than ten metres, the first time with the 7.26kg senior equipment, showed encouraging signs for the summer season.