Chichester's young athletes shine on the national stage

The London Games at Lee Valley provided a good platform to consolidate their winter training for Chichester Runners &AC juniors Holly Beaton and Sophie Ann Haigh.

In their first indoor season both showed good sprint skills, tacking the 300m and the 60m respectively. Beaton recorded a PB of 45.86 in the 300m and Sophie Anne clocked 8.16 in the 60m, her first time at this event.

Jess Breach was in action at the Sussex indoor championships at Carshalton. Her time of 9.41sec in the 60m hurdles was good enough for fourth place in the final, just out of the medals but a fine PB.

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Breach tackled the long jump, with a season’s best of 4.98m for fifth place.

Jamie Moore took silver in the senior men’s pole vault clearing four metres.

The British Athletics indoor championships and European trials held in Sheffield saw Isobel Brown selected for the high jump. This was her first experience of a major senior competition and she found it exciting to be in the mix with world and Olympic-class athletes. Her performance of 1.68 was just below her best indoors of 1.73.

She also competed at the England Athletics national indoor age group championships at Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena, again in the high jump. Having been on the podium for the past two years Brown was under pressure, and managed to clear 1.69m for sixth place. Brown completes the indoor season ranked seventhth in the UK in her age group at high jump and will now continue her winter training for heptathlon.

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Meanwhile, both Jamie Moore and Charlie Roe continued their fine indoor season in the British Universities and Colleges

Championships at the Sheffield indoor arena at the weekend.

As the two athletes are multi-eventers with their sights on making the national rankings in the decathlon in 2013, the indoor season affords an opportunity to assess their winter’s training.

Roe was delighted to set a lifetime best in the high jump at Sheffield by clearing two metres for the first time with a best leap of 2.01 and narrow failures at 2.04.

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Not only will this score great decathlon points but it edges Roe closer to Kevin Wilson’s club record of 2.03, which has stood for several years.

Roe also set a new best in the 60m hurdles at the same meeting and is looking to break the 16-second barrier over the senior 110m event in the summer.

Moore was happy to record another 4m clearance in the pole vault at the weekend and combined this with a speedy 400m over two laps of the indoor circuit.

After starting his athletics career as a middle-distance athlete, Moore has made great strides in the shorter track events and in the throws and jumps in the past few years to make him a force to be reckoned with over the ten disciplines in the decathlon.