Two of Herts Phoenix AC’s aspiring athletes won gold medals at the South of England Senior & Under 20 Championships at Crystal Palace this weekend. A full set of results cn be found via the "Resuls" tab to the left of this page.

In the U20 age group, Javelin thrower Peta Lundgren of St Albans won the gold with a season’s best throw of 42.17m showing that she is returning to her best form just at the right time of the season.  This was a close competition with both the silver and bronze medallists throwing over 41m.

In addition to this, Stanborough schoolgirl Stephanie Gaynor won the 100m hurdles title in her first year at the longer distance having moved up from 80m hurdles last year.  She ran a new personal best time in the heat of 14.20s and followed this up with 14.41s in the final to comfortably take the title from Kaneesha Johnson of Colchester and Jennifer Heckford of Windsor with 14.55s and 14.88s respectively.  Stephanie therefore adds the SEAA outdoor title to the indoor title she won at Pickett Lock in January of this year.

Also competing was Laura Wake in the 200m. Laura qualified comfortably from her heat, finishing second in 25.27 seconds and was agonisingly close to a medal in the final finishing 4th in a time of 25.33s.  This was a fine performance from the Presdales pupil who has been suffering with a knee injury of late which has hampered her training.

Emily Stevens, also competing in her first year as an U20, seems to be regaining her strength after a month out with a virus as she missed out on the final of the 400m hurdles by just 0.08s with a 66.96s in the heats.

In the triple Jump Danielle Currie who has been suffering with a foot injury was unable to jump after the warm up and will be undergoing medical tests to ascertain the extent of her injury.

In the U20 mens 400m hurdles the Club was represented by Josh Saydrouten and Alec Wing.  Both managed fine runs and personal bests to qualify for the final on Sunday.  Josh qualified automatically with an excellent time of 57.87s and Alec as a fastest runner up with a new PB of 58.21s.  In the final Josh ran even faster to finish 6th with a time of 57.16 and Alec could not quite match his run of the previous day finishing 7th in a time of 59.11s.  Both should look back and be pleased with their improvements this season.

In the High Jump, Brad Armorgie finished  in 6th place with 1.95m which, although below his best for the season, shows he is now jumping consistently in the high 1.90s-2m area.

Leo Lundgren, brother of Peta, was 8th in the Triple Jump with 13.37m

In the Long Jump, Ian Tobin who is struggling to recapture his fine form of last season, finished 12th with a jump of 6.16m.

In the Seniors age group, Heptathlete Laura Jones continuing her return to form qualified for the final of the 100m hurdles running an excellent 14.86s in her heat and going on to finish 7th in a high quality final running 14.93s.

Sisters Nikki and Christina Silva ran in the 800m and 400m hurdles respectively and although neither qualified for the final both ran well, recording 2.15.76 and 64.26s respectively.

In the 400m, Hayley Wills ran a fine 57.29, again narrowly missing out on a place in the final.

Jon Humphries