Two of South Holland’s finest young athletes won gold medals for Nene Valley Harriers at the North of England Indoor Athletics Championships over the weekend.
Hannah Molyneaux and Lily Hughes both made it to the top step of the podium at the Sheffield event after stunning showings in the shot put and 60m events respectively.
Molyneaux, the talented teenager trained by South Holland legend Geoff Capes, threw the under-17 shot put a massive 14.38m to win the event with a Championship Best Performance on Sunday.
Needless to say this was a Nene Valley club record and personal best (PB) for Molyneaux, who will be eligible to join the club’s senior team in the Southern Athletics League in the summer.
She will likely form a formidable team with fellow thrower Becki Hall, who won a bronze medal in the senior ladies’ shot on Saturday.
Her throw of 12.32m was a solid effort considering she was nursing an injured Achilles tendon.
Nene Valley’s other gold medallist was Spalding ace Hughes, who also broke her own PB and the club record.
She continues to get quicker with an impressive 7.75secs win in the under-20 ladies’ 60m.
She won her heat (third fastest overall) and semi-final with times of 7.87secs and 7.79secs before running marginally quicker in the final.
Although Hughes started slowly, she took the lead within 30m and never looked back.
To complete the collection of medals for the club on Saturday, the ever cheerful Rosie Fresen took a very good silver medal in the under-17 pole vault.
Only just into her third year of vaulting, Fresen started the competition slowly – having to adjust her run up slightly as she failed the first couple of heights on her first attempts.
She soon settled down and when she cleared the 3.10m mark by a large margin she really looked as if she was going to progress to new heights.
Again, Fresen cleared the 3.15m bar comfortably, equalling her own PB and setting a new club indoor record.
Unfortunately, she was unable to progress further as tiredness and nerves returned – which may have something to do with the lack of vaulting possible in recent weeks due to the weather.
Still, she did take a very impressive silver medal for her endeavours.
James McCrae was Nene Valley’s other medallist for the weekend, competing in the Midlands Counties Indoor Championships, which was also run in Sheffield.
He took the gold medal in the under-20 men’s 800m with a time of 1.58.79mins.
Dramatically, he clinched top spot with a last gasp dip on the line – taking the medal by just two one hundredths of a second.
This was an impressive performance, considering he had just won the North Midlands League Cross Country title in Nottingham just the one day earlier.
Away from the medal winners, Jasmine Allen produced a remarkable performance in her first competition as an under-17 athlete.
She had to go through the pool system to qualify for the long jump final – and did so jumping an indoor PB of 4.91m twice in the three attempts.
She then went a step further in the final. Having qualified in 12th place she jumped a new indoor best of 4.99m three times in the six attempts and also recorded 4.69m twice.
Overall it was a remarkable performance from Allen, who made no foul jumps in nine attempts and only recorded five different distances, which displayed consistency at its best.
Amazingly, Allen had not been aware that she had qualified for the long jump final when she competed in her 60m heat and ran a PB of 8.37secs.
Upon finishing the race she went straight across from the line to compete in the long jump final.
She had also been aware that she had managed to qualify for the 60m semi-final and therefore literally made her last jump before going to call up for that, where she showed good strength of character to finish in 8.43secs, making her 16th overall.
Beth Denial was also out producing an indoor PB in the 60m hurdles, recording a time of 10.24secs in her under-20 ladies’ heat.
Shortly afterwards she also competed in the long jump and managed a leap of 4.95m for a fine fifth place.
- A few Harriers also attended the Southern version of the England Indoor Athletics Championships at Lee Valley.
Georgie Ivens continued her comeback from a serious injury and finished fourth in the senior ladies’ 400m with a time of 57.2ssecs.
The final had been just 40 minutes after her heat and she faced athletes who had all run for Great Britain at some time during their careers. Despite this she only missed out on the bronze by three or four strides.
Callum Crosby also competed in a tight under-20 men’s 60m. This was his first under-20 event and his time of 7.42ssecs was a PB.
His start had been slow due to being unsettled by a faulty start when the gun misfired. He came back into the race well, but didn’t have enough time to make the gaps up again.
Also competing in the under-20 ladies’ 200m was Tash Segal, who managed to finish a fine fourth with a PB.
