Published: Thursday, 14th May, 2009 1:00pm

County Champions galore

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Athletics

Danny Hodge triumphed in Berks.

A MASSIVE amount of county champions from Windsor, Slough, Eton & Hounslow Athletics Club were crowned at the weekend.

With some county championship results yet to be published, the WSEH tally of 78 county champions achieved could yet be exceeded.

The Berks AA Championships at Eton not surprisingly yielded the major share with some 31 WSEH athletes grabbing gold medals. WSEH also dominated the Bucks AA Championships at Milton Keynes with a tally of a further 27 champions.

The Middlesex Championships at Ealing saw a further 11 added and the Surrey competition at Kingston provided another four and Beds two. There were single champions added at the Herts event, Gloucester and Oxfordshire competitions.

Five new county records were established, three at the Thames Valley Athletics Centre, the other two at Milton Keynes.

Pride of place must go to Dan Pembroke who shattered the existing under-20 javelin mark in the Bucks Championships to top the UK rankings with a throw of 70.86m. More importantly it exceeds the qualifying distance for the European Junior Championships later this year.

Also at Milton Keynes Leah Barrow set a new county record in the under-17 300m in 40.9 seconds.

At Eton Max Galliers improved on his own mark in the under-20 100 metres in 10.7. Another of WSEH"s top talent in the javelin, Rosie Semenytsh also beat her own record by some 20 centimetres in the Senior Ladies event with a throw of 45.62m. Cameron Lake improved the old mark by just one centimetre in the under-20 high jump with 2.08m.

There were several multiple champions. In the Bucks competition Josslyn Stotter scored a hat-trick of wins in the under-13 shot, discus and javelin.

Also in the Bucks event Zoe Toudup completed a winning double in the under-13 100m and 70m hurdles. Two athletes completed the sprint double at Milton Keynes, Chloe Mays in the under-15 100/200m and Tom Evans repeated the feat in the under-20 age group. Steve Johnson was another sprint expert at Eton, taking the 100/200m Senior Men titles.

Sprint star, Deji Tobais was unbeaten in both the under-20 100m and 200m at the Beds event. At the Middlesex Championships it was Jo John who achieved a throws double in the Senior Ladies discus and hammer.

Perhaps the hardest medals of all at Eton fell to WSEH youngsters with the club supplying both winners of the gruelling under-13 Boys and Girls Quadrathlon at Eton. George Butler and Morgan Lake put daylight between themselves and a large field to dominate the four event competition, with Butler setting a new 75m club record in the process.

At the other end of the age spectrum, veterans Danny Hodge (400m hurdles) and Janet Smith (hammer) also grabbed golds at Eton.