Athletics

TONBRIDGE Athletic Club's Sean Molloy produced a superb performance in his debut run at 3000m to win in a sprint finish, at the South of England Under 15/Under 17 3000m Championships, at Copthall Stadium, Barnet, on Sunday.

The club had seven athletes racing at the event and they came away with Molloy's gold and Charlie Joslin-Allen's bronze.

Molloy, the English Schools' under-15 800m champion, from earlier in the month, is better known for his exploits over much shorter distances, but proved that he also possesses endurance, as he sat with the leaders throughout the race.

At the finish, it became a sprint between Molloy and Matt Seddon, of Bracknell, who is the English Schools' 1500m Champion. However, Molloy was able to use his superior finishing speed to take the gold medal in 9min 14.58sec, which was the fastest time by an under-15 athlete in the UK this year. In the same race, Max Nicholls (ninth), Corey De'Ath (12th), Hanro Rossouw (14th) and Alex Kidd (20th) showed that Tonbridge have good strength in depth in this age group.

For Kidd, his time of 10:07.71 was a personal-best by 25 seconds.

Also running a new best time was Charlie Joslin-Allen, who had an outstanding run in the under-17 men's race. He was always up with the lead bunch and, in fact, led with just 250 metres to go.

However, he ended up behind O'Reilly, from Bournemouth, and Chambers, from Croydon, to take the bronze medal. His time of 9:02.77 was a best by 11 seconds.

Chris Lloyd finished not far behind, sixth in 9:07.00.

Meanwhile, at Ashford, a Tonbridge team competed in the final National Junior League match of the season.

Finlay Third (58.1sec) over the 400m hurdles and Grace Nicholls (2min 17.9sec) in the 800m were the only individual winners on the day, but there were still some good performances.

Tom Cox was placed a close second in the 2000m steeplechase (6min 31.9sec), in his debut at the event.

Nicole Taylor ran a pb of 2min 27.8sec for the 800m and was just beaten to the line by team-mate Jayne Mallyon, who ran a season's best time.

In the field events, Jonny Hinton contested three throws and recorded a pb of 39.57m in the javelin.

Tomorrow (Saturday), the Tonbridge club's senior men's team competes in the final Southern League match of the season, at Tonbridge School track, and on Sunday, the young athletes travel to Barnet for the regional final of the UK Young Athletes' League.

On Tuesday evening, Tonbridge host an evening open meeting at Tonbridge School, where entry is available to anyone over 11 years old. Details are available at www.tonbridgeac.co.uk.