Juniors take over at top of league table
11:01am Wednesday 27th June 2001
In cold and windy conditions the weekend before last, a fighting Croydon Harriers Junior Men's team won a tightly fought contest to beat the league leaders Maidstone and take their spot at the top of the table.
The match was decided in the final event of the 4 x 400m relay where a mixture of throwers, jumpers and middle distance runners managed to hold on to 2nd place and retain a 9 point margin over 2nd place Medway AC and a valuable 28 point buffer behind Maidstone.
This was despite one of Croydon's best events, the pole vault, being cancelled due to an unsafe landing area.
Theo Casey was deservedly awarded man of the match for his 2.00m clearance to win the high jump.
Ugochi Anomelechi maintained an unbeaten record on the day by easily winning the 100m in 11.4 sec, 200m in 23.0 sec and helping the sprint relay to a 40m victory at the end of the day. Earlier he had stepped in at short notice to fill a vacant triple jump slot where he won the B' string in 12.18m.
Gavin Dublin likewise won a fast 400m comfortably in 49.4 sec and followed this with a easy victories in the B' string 200m (23.7 sec) and anchor leg in the sprint relay.
Bert Nnanyere narrowly missed out on the English School's qualifying standard with a no jump of 6.80m in the long jump. He narrowly won the event with a legal jump of 6.53m and also comfortably won the B string 100m in 12.0 sec.
Other wins on the day came from James Jordan in the B string Hammer (19.98) and Discus (30.93m), Kudsai Phiri in the B string 400m (54.0 sec), Daniel Campbell with a personal best of 1.85m in the High Jump and Phil Greenland in the B string Triple Jump (13.10m).
The win would not have happened without the able support of team Captain Jake Elsworthy who secured a personal best in a hard fought 400m hurdles where he placed 2nd in 59.2 sec.
As usual his multi-even talents were used to the full with another personal best to take 1st in the B string 110m hurdles (20.2 sec) and 4th place in the Javelin (36.56m) together with a solid leg in the 4x400m relay.
Another athlete securing vital points for the team was Jack Cahill who won the B string 400m and 110m hurdles with best times of 63.8 sec and 19.1 sec as well as bravely running the 2000m steeplechase and securing 4th place.
Amanuel Tshaye was back from injury to take a well fought 3rd in the 800m (2:03.3) and then ran a brave race in the 1500m to secure more valuable team points.
He was ably supported by Martin Nelson who finished 4th in each race with personal bests in each.