Herne Hill Harriers athletics: Second place for Snowden at Manchester meeting

BY GEOFF JERWOOD

Katie Snowden claimed a second place at the Bryggen Sports Elite Invitational meeting in Manchester on Saturday.

Athletes with elite exemptions were able to race at the covid-secure indoor event.

It was a chance to attain the qualifying standards to be eligible for next month’s European Athletics Indoor Championship in Poland or simply to take part in a good race after the cancellation of the British Indoor Championship in Glasgow this weekend.

Herne Hill Harriers’ Snowden has missed around a month of her running training through injury before returning in early January.

She used the race at Sportcity to get good training stimulus from competition, regardless of whether she was quite competition ready.

Snowden placed a close second in the women’s 1,500m in 4:10.43, just outside her indoor PB – a very encouraging early year result that will help with her next block of training.

Snowden covered the pace increases after a fairly slow first half, but was not quite able to get past a clearly in form Holly Archer in the final few metres.

Both Archer and Snowden recorded times that are well inside the European Indoor Championship qualifying time for the event. Snowden was then back on the track to act as the pacemaker for the women’s 800m, covering her allotted 400m in the requested time.