Thomas Whorton conduced a near perfect time trail to win the London indoor games 800m U15 title. With several heats counting towards the championships, worked out on time alone, he had to judge his race to be a quick as possible and beat all in his, the fastest, of the heats.
With a new Personal Best of 2.05.36, the London wide title was gained for the first time. To gauge the performance it may help to say that the end of year times are as follows . The indoor time rankings top 100 target is 2.07.5 and the top 10 time is 2.00.00 . Thomas’s clocking seems to be the fastest in the UK this year. At least until this goes to print but with rankings being regularly updated this though highly probable is by no means certain. This is an auspicious start to the 2024 season especially as the England Athletics OPEN U20/U17/U15 Indoor Championships will be in Sheffield on Saturday 10th & Sunday 11th February. With the entry standard for his age group being 2.14.00 and for the age group above being 2.08.00 it looks like Thomas may well be a very strong contender, especially if the recovery from a lower arm injury is complete. The school Year 9 record is 2.03.4 by the great Andy Moore set in 1981. If he keeps fit all year he has another 8 months to better this. Incidentally, the sports day record of 2.09.0 (Tim Livingstone 2010) seem well within grasp if the conditions on the day are favourable and fitness is maintained.