Surrey County Champs 8th/9th May at Kingston

Walton athletes had another successful weekend at the county championships continuing our recent trend of increasing participation and improved results.

A total of 28 athletes competed and picked up 27 medals including nine county titles.

No under 13 boys entered but four under 13 girls did and they came away with three titles and four medals. Sophie Mace won the shot and the discus and was 3^rd in the javelin, producing pb’s in all three events. Megan Houska was the other gold medallist, in the high jump. Nina Giambrone was unlucky with two 4^th places, in the 200m and the long jump. Lydia McNulty ran a pb for 5^th in her heat of the 800m and Lydia and Megan finished 8^th and 10^th in the long jump. Nina and Sophie were 4^th and 5^th in the heats of the 100m

Three under 15 boys won 5 medals between them. Matthew Szepietowski won the hammer with Curtis Knight 2^nd. Matt was 2^nd in the javelin with Curtis 5^th. Reece Barnett won the silver in the long jump and Curtis picked up a bronze in the shot. Curtis was also 5th in the discus with Matt 7^th in the 200m. All four of Curtis’s throws and Matt’s hammer were pb’s.

Camilla Papa improved her 200m pb three times winning her heat and semifinal and claiming the silver medal in the final. Lucy Paskell finished 5^th in the final having improved her pb twice. Camilla also ran pb’s in the heat and final of the sprint hurdles, finishing 4^th. In the 100m Camilla set another three pb’s winning her heat and semi and finishing 2^nd in the final . Lucy Paskell came 6^th in the final having set a pb in the heat and Lucy Weir ran a big pb in her heat. Beth Hamlet knocked a big chunk off her 800m pb to come 4^th in her heat, just missing out on a place in the final. Lucy Weir also came 7^th in the long jump.

Three under 17 men took part. Hugo Fleming came 2^nd in his 800m heat and then 3^rd in the final. Kyle Treherne ran a pb for 6^th in his 800m heat, Ben Kennard improved his pb’s for 400m hurdles and 1500m, winning the silver over the last few strides in the hurdles and coming 7^th in the 1500m

Last year Carla Letheby won four titles, this year she improved upon that winning five. She won all four under 17 women’s throws and also entered and won the under 20 women’s discus. Sinead O’Brien was runner up in the hammer and the shot and came 4^th in the discus; hammer and discus were both pb’s. Lisa O’Brien won silver in the sprint hurdles and bronze in the long jump. Lisa also came 5^th in the 300m hurdles with Kate Lee 7th

There were three under 20 entries. Mark Partridge came 4^th in his 200m heat, qualifying for the final where he came 7^th. Martin Norman was 6^th in his heat of the 400m. In the women’s 400m Nicola Aylett was 6th in her heat.

Kaylee Price was the only senior woman to enter and she won the silver medal in the 100m hurdles.

Six senior men took part. On the track Adam McCarthy won the bronze medal in a very tight finish in the 400m hurdles and David O’Connell was 5th in his heat of the 400m. In the jumps there were bronze medals fro Greg Conlon in the pole vault and Alex Fraser in the long jump. In the throws Rob Smith produced his best ever hammer series and won the bronze medal with a pb and in the shot there was a pb for Jason Kennard to come 5^th with Rob in 6^th.

The improvement in entrants and results over the last five years is impressive, congratulations to all the coaches as well as the athletes.