Best Feet Forward — Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club

Our first Open Distance meeting of the season at Wimbledon Park duly delivered on the Club's reputation for staging fast, seeded races, with an amazing 106 athletes achieving PBs and another 47 notching up season's bests over the 12 1500m races.

Fastest Hercules athlete on the night, in the final Elite race, was Andrew Penney who surged over the line to finish in fourth, just ahead of Charlie Eastaugh in sixth. Having not raced over 1500m since 2013, this was Andrew's second race over the distance in a matter of weeks. He set a new PB of 3:53.33 at the BMC meeting in Eltham, only to lower it again to 3:47.32 at Wimbledon Park – agonisingly close to the qualification time (3:45.00) for the British Championships in Manchester at the end of the month.

Nevertheless he declared himself ‘very happy with that time! When I was warming up I got quite nervous because the conditions felt so good and I knew it was a great opportunity, he says. 'I have to learn to believe in myself more; its easy to get intimidated by the names on start lists and have negative thoughts – but tonight I managed to channel the nervous energy and when I got going I felt very comfortable. The pacemaker did a great job. Charlie came past me very hard at about 600m, then I was tucked in behind him and we passed a couple more athletes at the bell. The last 400m was about hanging on, but I felt really strong down the home straight. Four years ago I had a good track season – I ran an OK 3000m at Wimbledon Park, and some good 5000m but never any 1500m races, which was my big regret, so I’m making up for it now!’

He will go again at the BMC International Grand Prix at Watford on Saturday night (see below) – which offers a last chance to nail that qualifying time before the 12 June deadline, whereas Charlie – who paced the elite Roger Bannister Mile at the Iffley Festival of Miles in Oxford on Saturday – has decided to call time on chasing the qualification standard. 'No more 1500s for me for now,' he says, 'though with a seven-race average of 3:48 over the past 12 months I’m very happy with the consistency and hoping for 3000m and mile PBs in July and another 1500m breakthrough later in the summer'.

In Race 9 Jonny Cornish bravely took it out on his own over the last 400m, finishing in 3:59.80, a whisker outside his PB of 3:59.54 set back in 2019 at the BMC Gold Standard event in Watford. Behind him in third Ollie Carrington notched a season's best of 4:03.64, with George Mallett clocking a PB of 4:07.23. In the penultimate race Fred Slemeck also finished strongly, crossing the line in in 3:56.27, just outside his PB of 3:56.64.

Above: Fred Slemeck crosses the finish line in the penultimate race of the night. Photograph by Mark Hookway

Also notable among the wealth of PBs was the 4:49.29 achieved by U13 Thomas Whorton, who is perhaps better known as an 800m specialist – as well as an outstanding cross country runner – having won the gold medal in the 800m at the Surrey County Championships in mid-May. Thomas finished the indoor season ranked fourth in the UK and is currently ranked 10th outdoors over 800m, while his 1500m PB positions him in 14th over this distance.

Another County Championship medallist, U20 Albane Fery, who won the silver in the 1500m at the Championships, also further whittled down her PB with a time of 4:49.69.

Below: Thomas Whorton on his way to a new PB (photo again by Mark Hookway).

Above: Andrew Penney with Jonny Cornish, who was back in action three days later at the Iffley Festival of Miles at the legendary track where Roger Bannister became the first to run sub-4 minutes over the distance. Jonny won his mile race in a PB of 4:21.34.

Full results

Girl Power

The Club's U13/U15 Girls and U17 Women finished third in the opening match of the Lily B League at Epsom last Saturday, 4 June, which saw a number of young athletes competing for the first time.

Notably Willow Scales was second for the A string in the U15 75m Hurdles in 12.6, with Flo Freeman first for the B string in 12.8, with U13 Isabella Harrison second in the 200m in 29.2, and Marly Taylor first for the B string in 29.0. U13s Poppy Guest and Tilly Crome were second in the A and B races in the 1500m in 5:23.1 and 6:34.6 respectively.

On the field U15 Neva Jansen won the hammer with a throw of 17.10m and the discus with 23.46, with Visne Bariman throwing furthest for the B string hammer, with 16.69m and Charlotte Gurney also clinching a B string win in the discus with 14.62m. Willow Scales was in action again, winning the high jump, clearing 1.56m, with Visne again scoring valuable points amongst the B athletes with 1.25m. Willow was also second in the javelin, with a throw of 20.74 Florence Foster jumped 3.72m to finish second in the U13 long jump, with Poppy Guest fourth for the B-string with 2.98m. For the U15s, Flo Freeman was second with a jump of 4.45m, and Tallulah Broadbent 4th B athlete with 3.21m. Marly Taylor won the U13 high jump, clearing 1.35m, with Florence Foster for the B string leaping 1.25m to seal maximum points.

Willow's older sister Mabel-Rose won both the U17 high jump and long jump (4.90m) – though due to an error in reading the heights, only the placings can be recorded for the high jump and not the heights. Mabel-Rose was backed up in the long jump by Ella Ianotti, with a distance of 3.79.

Fistful of Medals

Multi-eventer Christer Hagberg came away with a rich medal haul in the M45 category at the Surrey Masters Championships at Kingston on Sunday, 5 June, six of them gold: in the discus, hammer, javelin, shot, high jump, and heavy hammer, plus a silver in the long jump.

W55 Lisa Thomas (left) won gold in the 200m and 400m and silver in the 800m; while Club coach Mark White, M55 (below) clinched a gold in the 400m and a silver in both the 100m and 200m, and Paul Wignall (M65) won gold in the 200m and 400m and silver in the 200m.

Heather Letley took the W35 gold in the long jump and Anna Garnier won the W65 1500m, despite pulling a quad muscle during training on Tuesday. 'I felt it during the 1500m but ran within myself and finished without being out of breath', she says. However she sensibly pulled out of the later 5000m.

There were silver medals for Hamed Agboke (M35) in the 400m, Emile Hage (M50) in the 100m, 400m (and bronze in the 200m), and Stuart Leigh (M55) in the 100m Hurdles and both the flat 400m and 400m Hurdles.

Amy Caiger also took the silver in the 200m and bronze in the 100m; while M70 Tony O'Connor was first in his category in the triple jump and third in the 200m.