South Holland starlet Hannah Molyneaux added yet another gold medal to her ever increasing tally of national titles at the England Athletics Indoor Age Group Championships at Sheffield over the weekend.
Throwing later on Saturday – and having only just moved up an age group to under-17 – the Geoff Capes-trained ace continued her recent fine form to win the under-17 shot put title with a throw of 14.22m.
Molyneaux’s titanic throw was just 3cm off the Championship best performance, a distance she looks likely to surpass next year. Although her first three throws weren’t up to her usual high standards, she dominated the competition and won by almost 40cm.
Molyneaux was one of three Nene Valley ladies in the same competition, with all three finishing in the top ten nationally.
Priscilla Dadzie qualified for the final three rounds of throws, finishing eighth with 11.64m ahead of Tierney Augustine (11.58m) in ninth.
Elsewhere, sprint hurdler Josh Akinwumi qualified for the under-17 men’s 60m hurdles final by finishing third in his heat with a club record time of 8.21secs – looking extremely smooth over the barriers. In the final, however, he hit the first hurdle and struggled to recover despite finishing with a creditable seventh place.
Also on-song was 18-year old middle distance runner James McCrae , who finished fifth in the under-20 men’s 1,500m.
Run as a straight final, McCrae’s time of 4.00.83mins in the 1,500m was just under a second outside of his personal best (PB) set last winter before injury blighted his 2015 track season.
The Nene Valley ace was running comfortably in the lead group for the first 1,200m and only began to drop back as the pace increased for the final lap.
Middle-distance runner McCrae has been concentrating on his endurance during the winter and has shown some good form.
He was recently crowned under-20 champion in the North Midlands Cross series and followed that up with a creditable seventh place in the Midland Cross championships.
He now trains at Birmingham University under the guidance of Bud Baldaro and Luke Gunn with a talented group of athletes, headed by European under-23 Cross Champion Johnny Davies.
McCrae’s next outing is the imminent BUCS Championships.
Kane Wright also continued his consistent form in the 60m, winning his heat in a time of 6.97secs and looking good.
Having missed four weeks through injury at the end of 2015, he didn’t quite have sufficient fitness to qualify for the final, just missing out with a time of 7.01secs in the semi.
Amazingly, almost all Wright’s 60m races this season have proven to be within a few hundredths of a second of each other.
- Although not at the national championships, a few Nene Valley athletes attended an open meeting at Lee Valley over the weekend.
Under-15 Megan Williams ran a personal best (PB) 9.12secs in her 60m sprint, while under-13 Jose Downer also recorded a PB of 8.86secs in the same event.
As well as recording a previous run of 8.90secs in the 60m, Downer then set an indoor club record and PB of 29.43s in the 200m – effectively making it three PB performances in one day.
