Claire Brennan and Nicola Hill both hurdled to 60m silver medals at South of England Indoor Championships, held at the impressive new Lee Valley Athletics Centre, Edmonton, this weekend. And Nicola made it a personal medal double when on Sunday she added a long jump silver to Saturday’s hurdles’ success.

The first medal went to Claire on Saturday morning when she came through strongly to snatch silver, clocking 9.47s in a straight final in the senior women's 60m Hurdles event to add to previous medals in this competition. She returned on Sunday to clock 27.56s in her 200m heat.

In the Under 17 hurdles equivalent Nicola Hill went one better than last year’s bronze medal when she came away with silver. After winning both her heat & semi-final, the latter in a career best of 8.98s, Nicola was one of the medal favourites.  In the final she came back powerfully from a poor start to claim second as Colchester’s Kaneesha Johnson took gold. On Sunday Nicola added a second silver when her final round 5.12m leap earned her long jump runners-up spot, again behind the talented Johnson, who also won the South of England indoor pentathlon title two weeks earlier.

There were top six places for five other club members. Anthony Williams improved his - 60m Hurdles PB to 8.70s in the U20 Men’s event, placing third in his heat, before taking fifth spot in the final in a slightly slower time. Williams was also 7^th in the long jump in 6.08m. Another fifth place in the U20 age group went to Vincent Lazaro, with his 6.29m long jump 6.29m.  Kirsty Smith opened her indoor account with fifth place in the senior long jump with a useful 5.34m.

Two sixth places went to Chris Warden (U17 - 60m Hurdles - 8.88s PB) and Bethan Siddons, who was one of six athletes left in the U17 High Jump at 1.60m but had to settle for sixth with her third time clearance at 1.55m. 1.55m). David Creedon set a PB of 8.93s in his U17 60m Hurdles heat but just missed a final place, and he also progressed to the 400m semi-final with a PB of 55.46s, placing second in his heat.

Luke Stott ran 23.0s for third in his senior men’s 200m heat but his 23.51s semi-final clocking was not good enough to progress.  James Murphy was close to his best with a 52.43s effort in the senior 400m but did not line up for his semi final place.  Also in action were Nina Brennan, who ran 67.0s in the senior 400m, and Samantha Hill, who gained useful experience but failed to make it past the U15 girls’ 60m hurdles heats.