Eastbourne youngsters fly flag for Sussex schools in Nottingham

Qualification to participate was awarded on a local level when children from schools across the county competed at the Sussex Schools Cross Country Championships at Waterhall, Brighton, in January.

The Junior Girls’ Sussex team performed brilliantly and were rewarded by placing second.

Eastbourne’s Daisy Connor was the first from Sussex home with an impressive downhill stretch towards the finish placing 22nd.

Her Rovers teammate Freda Pearce had a gutsy run in 35th with Evie Lennard 190th.

This was superb running for Evie as it is her first year in the age group.

In the Junior Boys’ race Sussex placed well up the leaderboard, positioning as 11th team.

Fin Lumber–Fry was 83rd and Jonah Messer 160th, impressive runs as first year in their age category among a vast field of over 320 top county athletes.

The Senior Girls also ran well and Sussex positioned as a creditable fourth team.

Eastbourne Rover Eleanor Strevens worked her way through the field to position 66th, with Ellie Mclean continuing her strong form this cross-country season placing 111st.

This weekend is the Year 7 & 8 Inter-county Cross-Country championships in Tonbridge, Kent.

We hope to have a report on that event in next week’s Herald.

Eastbourne Rovers star Brian Slaughter struck gold and broke another British Masters record for this winter’s indoor season in the British Masters Multi-Events Championships at Lee Valley.

The Indoor Pentathlon event always starts with the 60m hurdles and Brian ran 0.4 seconds faster than his previous run out over the barriers this winter with a 10.36 clocking for 823 points on the scoreboard.

He has now said he wants to go sub 10 at the World Indoor Championships at the end of the month, which would score 900 points.

Next up was the Long Jump with a near season’s best, bringing a solid points return of 718.

In the shot put, an event that has been going well in training, he delivered with the longest throw of the day with 11.16m and 781 points.

This followed a very solid high jump which looks like another improving event ready for the worlds.

This meant he had to run a 3.47.2 in the five-lap 1000m to break the record.

The commentator did a great job along with the timekeepers so that he could keep his pace slightly below 45 seconds per lap.

He hit the bell at 2.59 with only one person in front of him, a great pulling and striking position to be in.

And he got the job done as he overtook around the final bend to secure the time needed for 709 points in 2.43.12 and a great total of 3692 – 33 points better than the previous record.

The focus now is now on the World Masters Indoor Championships in Torun Poland at the end of March.