Chichester athletes shine in Southern League

Despite missing a few regulars, Chichester fielded a stronger squad of 21 athletes with ten making their first appearance in senior league competition for the club.

Such was the standard on the track that Chichester even pipped host club Crawley, who repeated their overall match victory.

However these top two left Horsham, East Grinstead and Dorking & Reigate in their wake.

The club’s sprinters continued the good form they have shown all season.

Fleur Hollyer spearheaded the women’s A string 100 and 200m with a couple of fast second places while Samantha Turnbull and Rachel Laurie were just as impressive in B string races with Natasha Turnbull a non-scorer.

These four combined well at the end of the match in the 4x100m relay running an impressive Crawley quartet to a close second. For the men, Dominic Barth ran a speedy 11.5 seconds into a slight headwind and then set a new best of 23.6sec in the 200m.

Middle distance runner Joe McLarnon ran a good 24sec 200m and a 53.9 clocking over 400m, both PBs.

Running over 800m was Ned Potter, who has been showing such fine form at Loughborough University. A storming run over 3000m shaved a second off his best in 8.30.8 to break the club record for the second time this season. He was deprived of the race win by Jacob Cann from Horsham.

Also in action were two of the club’s new batch of promising under-17s with Hal Edgar running a 2.15 800ms while Eddie Borbone ran PBs in both 800m and 1500m but had enough energy left for the 4x400m relay.

Andy Hall was the club’s mainstay in the throws and was rewarded with a winning hammer throw of 38.87. Youngster Ghianjhill Yatali showed good promise in the javelin as well as turn of foot in the relays.

The women’s middle distance track races epitomised the club’s range of talent across the age group with an under-17 trio of Amelie McGurk, Isabelle Isitt and Gemma Appleton doing battle over 800m with McGurk following this up with a good 400m and Isitt and Appleton the longer 1500m.

Veteran pair Nadia Anderson and Elizabeth Robinson flew the club’s colours in the 3000m along with under-20 Amelia Bromell – all three Chichester athletes notching PBs.

In the field events Nicole Boltwood was over nine metres in her first triple jump for the club after having knocked more than eight seconds from her best over 400m hurdles.

Amanda Godfrey backed up the triple jump as a solid B string and newcomer to the team while Alice McGurk joined daughter Amelie in the javelin to gain near maximum points for the club.

In the throws Lucie Munday was in good form in the discus with Cassie Bailey making her first appearance of the season in both discus and shot.

ENGLISH SCHOOLS

Chichester Runners duo Maya Solly and Josh Dunne both finished in the national top eight at Manchester’s English schools finals.

Solly, in the intermediate girls’ discus, threw 36m for seventh place.

Dunne, running for Hampshire, set a new PB of 2.03 to be ranked fifth in the junior boys’ 800m, a couple of seconds off the medallists.