'Another successful week for Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club’s athletes' at the Surrey Relay

They gained a bagful of medals at the Surrey relay and combined events championships. The older generation got among the medals in the European Masters Championships.

The club’s top athlete, Southwark-based Dwayne Cowan, was selected to run for Britain in the IAAF Wold Championships in Doha, writes Tom Pollak.

Cowan, at 34, one of the oldest athletes in the 72-strong British team selected for Doha, clinched his place in the 4x400 metres relay squad after finishing fourth in the trials at Birmingham last month.

He is ranked third over 400 metres in the UK this summer clocking 45.77 seconds in an international meeting in Switzerland at the end of June.

However, he was shy of his lifetime best of 45.34 set in 2017 and also just missed the UK Athletics qualifying time of 45.30 for the individual event in Doha.

Cowan took runners-up spot in the European team championships in Poland at the beginning of last month but has a good record in relay events helping Britain to the silver medals in last season’s European championships in Berlin and to bronze in the last World Championships in London in 2017.

Two of the club’s other internationals helped Hercules Wimbledon take gold in the Surrey senior men’s 4x100 metres relay championship at the David Weir Leisure Centre, Carshalton, on Sunday.

Theo Etienne and Chad Miller linked up with Ryan Facey and Antonio Douglas to win in 42.22.

The quartet of Ivan Suarez, Pete McLeod, Will Toms and Kashane Gayle took the bronze medals.

Hercules Wimbledon took gold and silver in the senior men’s 4x400 metres relay championship with Miller, Devonte Casely-Hayford, Jaleel Roper and Andrew Sarpong clocking 3:34.16 and Hamed Agboke, Ivan Suarez, Pete McLeod and Will Toms winning the silver medals in 3:38.61.

Fresh from his English under 15 200 metres championship win in Bedford the previous weekend, teenager Freddie Arkell anchored the Hercules Wimbledon 4x100 metres relay team to victory in a championship record of 45.37 seconds.

The quartet which also included Amir Howe, Emmanuel Adetu and Efe Peters finished 20 metres head of the silver medallists.

The senior women’s 4x100m relay squad took silver and the under 17 women bronze medals.

Another gold medal-winning effort was achieved by all-rounder Jenny Steinitz who took the senior women’s heptathlon. She won by more than 400 points with her Hercules Wimbledon clubmate Anna-Kathrine Meikle taking the bronze medal. Teenager Ellen Weir took the silver medal in the under 17 women’s 1500 metres steeplechase.

Over at the European Masters Championships in Venice, Italy, Hercules Wimbledon’s Lisa Thomas took silver in the over 50 300 metres hurdles in a personal best of 50.51.

Earlier, she won her heat in 52.55. Husband and wife Dominic and Emilie Bokor-Ingram reached the finals of their events. Emilie was third in the over 35 400 metres in 63.49 with Dominic eighth in the men’s over 50 final in 55.23 after winning his first round heat in 55.92. He posted faster time in his semi-final where he was second in 55.13.

John Siddall was the best of 18 Hercules Wimbledon runners in action in the Wimbledon Common 5km parkrun on Saturday. He was fourth of the 647 finishers in 17:42, a 15 second improvement on his best time set the previous weekend. Jonny Cornish clocked a much faster 15:06 in taking runners-up spot out of 1417 runners in the Bushy Park event. He was nine seconds behind the winner.

This weekend, Hercules Wimbledon host the annual Surrey road relay championships from their Wimbledon Park track headquarters starting at 12noon on Saturday.