Medway and Maidstone used home advantage to close the gap on the leading teams in the Sweatshop Southern Athletics League, Division 3 table, writes Alan Newman.

The sprint quintet of Michael Watson, Darryl Wright, Darcey Kuypers, Jazmin Salter and Shauna McFarlane did not drop a point. Watson took the men’s 100m (11.09sec) and 200m (22.39) with support from Wright (11.30 and 22.78 PB). Kuypers (12.51) and Salter (12.81) secured a maximum from the women’s 100m and McFarlane (25.60 PB) and Salter (25.86 PB) dominated the 200m with their fastest-ever times.

At 400m there was a full complement of points for George Clements (52.42), Adam Thompson (54.76 PB) and Sian Keegan (59.24 PB) and similar success for Andrejs Safars (1min57.95sec) and under-17 Jacques Cunningham-Marsh (2.00.62 PB) at 800m.

The longer distances yielded a win for Ben Tyler (4.15.59) in the 1,500m plus a double in the 3,000m for Tom Collins (9.27.56) and Mark Wilkins (9.43.52) and a win over 5,000m for Stephanie Hearn (20.22.13 PB). Collins (10.28.12) and Wilkins (10.57.89) were also unbeatable in the 3,000m steeplechase.

Harriet Day enjoyed a hurdles double at 100m (15.99) and 400m (1.05.16 PB) with Imogen Munday (1.07.40 PB) providing perfect support in the longer event. Lewis Heffernan (59.40) and Collins (1.04.07) took the men’s one lap hurdles races.

With plenty of sprinting talent available it was no surprise to see M&M carry the baton home first in all four relays. The men recorded 44.76 for 4x100m and 3.33.98 for 4x400m and the women’s winning times were 52.18 and 4.21.27.

Points were harder to gather from the field events, but Wright (5.88m) and Heffernan (5.57) doubled in the long jump and Heffernan (12.35 PB) and Safars (11.75 PB) were peerless in the triple jump.