Cohen set to hit new heights
ATHLETICS WITH his eye on the English Schools championships in the summer, 16-year-old Jonathan Cohen of Shaftesbury Harriers was delighted to set a new personal best of 3.72m in the pole vault at Vault London in Carshalton.
“I need to reach 3.90m to qualify for English Schools,” said Cohen.
“But in the first six months of 2018 I improved by 65cm and this year I have already upped my PB by seven cm. So I think it’s something I can realistically look to achieve, though I still have a lot of work to do.”
Sophie Dowson and Eden Davis were both in action at the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) championships in Sheffield. Dowson, 20, placed third in the pole vault with 3.70m, while Davis, 19, won his 60m heat in a promising season’s best of 6.91.
“I was ahead of the pack in the semi-final,” said Davis, “but I cramped up and only just managed to get over the line in the end. I was feeling very strong until then and I think I would have done well in the final.”
The last Start Fitness Metropolitan League fixture of the season saw Hannah Viner, 22, run another storming cross-country race to claim victory over nearly 250 other runners, finishing 23 seconds ahead of the second-placed competitor.
Adam Richards-Gray of Oxford AC started his season with a time of 27.37 for the 200m and a PB of 8.29 for the 60m at the South of England Masters indoor championships.
The V40 athlete said: “This has motivated me for the outdoor season. I want to cut a little over half-a-second off my 100m PB of 12.72, to give myself a good chance of reaching at least the semi-finals at the Europeans in Venice in September.”
The V65 sprinter Alan Perry, who won bronze in the 60m, is also planning to compete in Italy, along with “nearly-80” Roger Bruck, who took gold in the high jump and silver in the long jump, while his 11.05 in the 60m was his best since 2017.
In Israel, Maru Teferi and Lonah Chemtai-Salpeter are celebrating new national records in the marathon and the 5K respectively.
Teferi knocked 2:26 off the previous Israeli record, finishing eighth in 2:10.11 in Seville, while ChemtaiSalpeter beat the entire mixed field to win the Or Yehuda 5K road race in 15:15, breaking her own record by 29 seconds.