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The death of Sydney Wooderson at the age of 92, just before Christmas, brings to an end any athletic link to the “pre War” years.
For most athletes today and indeed many officials, the name of Sydney Wooderson would be rewarded with a blank stare, but Wooderson must be regarded as one of the greatest British athletes of all time.
An athlete who was deprived of Olympic medals by injury and the 1939/45 altercation Wooderson set World records at 800 metres, Half-mile and One Mile in the immediate pre War years and his Half-mile record of 1min. 49.2sec. actually stood for seventeen years.
An injury prevented him contesting the 1936 Olympic 1,500 metres which was won by the New Zealander Jack Lovelock an ....
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 Sophie Hales (Pictured) from Steyning created history, it is believed, when she became the first Woman ever to win the 5.5-mile Boxing Day walk.
The Boxing Day event was originally just a walking race when promoted by the Brighton Labour club more than seventy years ago and there have been a series of high profile International walkers who have won this race.
Women of course did not compete until the 1980s, and this year however Sophie became, what is it thought the first Woman to win the event overall.
Steaming well clear of Surrey Walking club’s Sean Lightman, an oft times winner of the event over the past twenty years, on the first lap Sophie eventually completed the course in 47:16 some ....
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The Sussexathletics.org website team would like to wish all our visitors and all involved in Sussex athletics a Happy Christmas and thank you for visiting us.
The site was launched at the end of March and we hope it has been of service to Athletics within Sussex.
We are currently averaging more than 5,000 hits per day and we topped the One Million hits mark at the end of October.
If you want something on the Web that we do not currently provide please let us know and we will see if it can be accommodated.
Remember the News pages are regularly updated but if you have not looked for a week all the items are archived and only five stories are held on ....
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 Some twenty members of the Sussex “Endurance Group” enjoyed crisp sunshine and a reasonable amount of sticky conditions for the Development Day at Ardingly College.
After their General Warm-Up, Drills and a Technical Session they were able to relax with a Question and Answer session with former Olympic athlete Shireen Bailey.
Bailey, who 800 metres time of 1:58.97 in 1987 still ranks her at the fifth fastest British “Two lapper” on the All-time” list, was looking as svelte and fit as she ever did despite now being well into the “Masters” age groups.
Shireen told the youngster how running had changed her life since she first started at the age of twelve and “running fitness still plays a major part of my life.”
“Running ....
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 There were some good performances from a group of Sussex athletes who travelled to Brussels for the Iris Lotto Crosscup races.
In the Young Athletes age group, which are a year different from the British age groupings, there were Top twenty placings for Crawley twins Beth and Megan Kidger in the Under 14 race Beth placing a splendid fifth and Megan tenth.
In the Under 14 Boys race Patrick Hough (Phoenix) placed 7th while in the Under 16 event club mates Charlie Grice and Max Pickard finished 12th and 13th respectively.
In the senior men’s race Josh Guilmant (Phoenix) had a fine run finishing ahead of one of the South of England team members to place 55th.
While Josh was enjoying himself on the ....
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Visit the England Athletics South East Region Website
www.englandathletics.org
South East Region Club Development Funding
The next round of applications for Club Development Grants need to be received by January 31st 2007.
This date has been brought forward slightly in order to fall into the 2006 / 7 financial year thereby releasing more funds for next year.
Grants of up to £1000 will be awarded by the South East Region to clubs who present an innovative project proposal which will help develop their club and could be shared and adopted by other clubs.
Grants will be awarded twice per year and applications need to be received by January 31st 2007 or August 31st 2007.
An application form ....
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Horsham Blue Star and Eastbourne Rovers lead the League tables after the second round of the Sussex Sports Hall League at the Tanbridge House School.
Horsham head the Boys table with 12 points, well clear of Chichester and Eastbourne who both have nine points but Chichester has the higher total points.
In the Girl’s Group, after their victory on Sunday, Horsham have closed the gap on Eastbourne to just one point Eastbourne totalling 11 points to Horsham’s ten points and Brighton & Hove’s nine points.
FULL DETAILS ARE NOW ON THE RESULTS PAGE.
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 Chris Ball aims to emulate big brother Nick and become one of the top British race walkers and he certainly showed great form when winning the “Alf Palmer Memorial” 5km track walk at Broadbridge Heath.
Chris, who is still in the Under 15 age group certainly put it across handicapper Ron Penfold, to take full advantage of his handicap and steam to an eleven second victory over Dad Jimmy (Pictured) to become one of the youngest athletes to win this trophy.
With an actual time of 26:24 Chris chopped some three minutes off his previous best and was rewarded, not only with the trophy but with the day’s fifth fastest time.
Jimmy had the fastest clocking, walking better than he has for ....
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 The Brighton & Hove City team completed a hat trick of bronze medal at the South of Thames senior 7 ½ miles cross country championships at Brockwell Park.
Scoring 155 points the Brighton and Hove team finished third, for the third successive year, in the 6 aside race behind Belgrave’s 75 points and Herne Hill’s 146 points for whom County veterans champion was the third scoring member of their team in 15th place in 43:53, while the Brighton & Hove squad retained their “12 aside” title scoring 467 points to Belgrave’s 524 points.
It was Brighton & Hove’s Matthew Bristow (pictured) who led the Sussex challenge placing 11th in 43:11.
Andrew Donno filled 18th place in 44:13, Jason Benniman placed 23rd in 44:26, ....
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 Crawley’s Gavin Thompson was the third British runner to finish in the European Cross-country championships at Milan on Sunday.
Although he got the better of both runners who had beaten him in the “Trials” a couple of weeks back, Mo Farah, who did not contest the “Trials” had a magnificent run to win the race in 27:56 while Chris Thompson from Aldershot just managed to turn to tables on the Crawley runner finishing just seven seconds ahead of the former Sussex champion who clocked 28:52 in 28th place to help Great Britain into fourth team spot.
It is hoped that Gavin may be on hand at the “Sussex Endurance Day” at Ardingly College this coming Sunday.
Former British Olympic International Shireen Bailey will ....
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