Sophie Hamlyn, Lauren Bamford and Kayleigh Miller-Leslie
ASHFORD had a brilliant couple of days at the Kent Indoor track and field championships at the Lee Valley Centre winning 10 golds, 12 silver and 10 bronze medals.
One of the star performers was young Oliver Williams who took a full house of medals in the Under 15 age group with gold in a tight high jump contest with 1.50m, silver in the 60m hurdles with 9.73 holding off teammate Max Reeves and two bronze medals.
Oliver was third in the 200m with 26.19 and also in the 60m sprint (7.91) which was won by teammate Nathan Fatola who powered to a superb club record 7.77. Reeves was fifth in the sprint final.
Kara Gibbs took gold and silver in the senior women winning the high jump with 1.40m and second in the pole vault with 2.80m with teammate Emmeline Rendell in third with 2.70m as did Rachel Hanagan.
Rachel is ranked 9th in the country in the U20 triple jump after winning the Kent title with 11.14m and added the silver in the long jump with with 4.87m. Sister Laura leapt to a new indoor personal best of 10.21m in taking gold in the U17 triple jump.
Lauren Bamford won gold and silver taking the U15 county title in the 300m with a personal best 45.28 but was just edged out by clubmate Kayleigh Miller-Leslie in the 60m hurdles dash. Kayleigh took gold with 10.33 and Lauren clocked 10.45.
Also in the U15 girls Sophie Hamlyn claimed the county title in the long jump with 4.04m while at the other end of the age range Gary Macdonald won the M50 1km walk with 9:32.85.
Pete Davey and James Bridges secured senior men’s silver medals in the 60m hurdles and 200m respectively with 9.21 and 23.47 times while veteran Jon Ward took silver in the men’s shot 12.39 with Chris Kingland just missing a medal in fourth with 11.03m.
In the U20 men Tom Chambers held off teammate Hadley Pressley to take the 200m silver with 23.49 to Pressley’s 24.58 and Sam Beckett had a good weekend second in the U20 women’s 800m and third in the 400m. Sam was also fifth in the 60m sprint.
Amelia Jones was a fine second in the U17W 800 while Abigail Purkis set a personal best 28.15 in taking the bronze in the U15 200m with first year teammate Amber Currie making both the 60m and 200m finals.
Tom Williams took silver in the U17 triple jump with 11.73 and just missed another medal in the 60m hurdles fourth in 9.53 as well as a fifth in the 200m.
Jack Huxley took bronze in the U15 boys pole vault with a fine 2m vault and there were 200m personal bests for Caitlin Dock and Steve Walder. Others to go close to medals were Luke Williams fourth in the men’s pole vault (3.30m), Erin Maxwell fourth in the U15G high jump and fifth in the long jump and Lucy Holmes was fifth in the U17W shot.
