Thanet Athletics Club followed up on a successful County Indoor Championships earlier this year with an amazing Outdoor Kent Track and Field Championships at the weekend.
Boasting the most amount of athletes that they have ever sent, the whole weekend was sprinkled with great performances from start to finish and this resulted in Thanet AC bringing home 13 medals of 4 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze which is a club record.
On Saturday it all started off with our first medal in the U15 boys 300m where we had 2 athletes making the final and both running huge personal bests. Jack Seery ran a PB of 41.61s in his heat and Connor Neal jogged through in a PB of 41.23s to win his heat. In the final Jack ran 42.60s to finish 5th whilst Connor stormed to gold in a new PB of 40.31s.
This was closely followed by our next medals in the U20 women’s long jump. We had 2 athletes going head to head in a closely fought battle where Diana Adegoke narrowly edged out training partner Tamara Anderson for the gold medal. Both jumped the English Schools National Standard to hopefully be first in the queue for selection. Diana jumped 5m73 to record her 2nd best jump ever and rank her 9th in the country in an injury plagued season so far and Tamara jumped 5m67 to record a massive 37cm personal best and rank her 12th in the country.
There wasn’t long to wait for our 3rd gold medal of the day where we again had another 2 athletes making a final in the U15 girls 75m hurdles with Erin Moses winning her heat in a new PB of 11.90s and Abigail Sayer also running a PB of 13.10s. In the final Abigail ran another PB of 12.96s finishing 7th and Erin Moses ran a PB of 11.65s to win the gold medal and also, not only rank her 14th in the country, but achieve the Entry Standard for the English Schools Championships later this year.
Our 4th gold medal of the weekend came in the U15 boy’s triple jump where Jack Seery had a great series of 9m jumps culminating in a PB of 9m46.
We also achieved a silver medal in the Senior Mens hammer with Leon Weaving throwing a season’s best of 32m79, then another silver medal in the U20 womens javelin with club newcomer Storm Porter throwing a seasons best of 22m38, Chloe Williams in the same event recorded 15m02 to take the bronze and Oliver Cooper recorded a PB in the U20 mens pole vault to take a bronze medal.
Sunday saw Thanet AC take 4 more medals. First in the U15 girls 300m where 2 similar heats saw the club progress 3 athletes through to the final. Abigail Sayer (heat 48.34s PB) again ran a PB of 47.98s to finish 7th, Erin Moses ran a PB of 43.69s (heat 44.19s PB) to finish with the bronze medal and Mia Hillyard ran a PB of 43.64s (heat 45.06s) to achieve the silver medal in what was an exciting blanket finish for the first 4 athletes in the final.
We then had Danny Campion take the gold medal in the Disability 100m with a season’s best of 19.48s. This keeps Danny at a ranking of 4th in the UK.
Our last medal of the weekend came from Oliver Cooper in the U20 mens long jump with a consistent series of 5m jumps resulting in his best of 5m44.