OLI Bromby was a man in a hurry at the 2015 Hampshire Athletics Track & Field Championships.

With July’s World Youth Championships in Colombia calling, the 17-year-old Southampton AC sprinter had no time to waste at Portsmouth’s Mountbatten Centre.

Having revved up with a 21.7-second 200 metres win on the opening day of the championships, the Richard Taunton College student powered into overdrive in his preferred 100m event on Sunday.

The Shirley speedster showed he meant business in the heats, laying down an impressive 10.70-second marker to set a new under-20 men’s championship best.

He went faster still in the final, serving up what the stadium announcer described as “another brilliant exhibition of sprinting” to win gold in 10.63.

It wasn’t as fast as he had managed in the previous week’s Loughborough International where a personal best of 10.42 virtually assured him of a place on the plane for Cali, Colombia (July 15-19).

Typically of Bromby he was his own harshest critic afterwards, but said the whole aim of the county weekend was to iron out any faults and build on his training.

“My form in the heats was sloppy. My hands were not high enough, things like that,” he confessed.

“I felt better in the final, but my plan in any case was to train through the Hampshires and use it as a training session for later in the season.

“Hopefully I should be off to the World Youths in Colombia. I needed to run 10.65 to qualify and I’ve done a 10.42 pb.

“My goal this season is just to make the Worlds and, at 17, I feel I’m at the perfect age to go.

“Just to get to Colombia and make the final would be good. If I do get there it will easily be the biggest thing I’ve ever done – and it may well be one of the biggest things I’ll ever do.”

Bromby – coached by Sara and Gary MacDonald-Gray in Southampton - will find out if he is South America-bound when the selections are announced after the England under-23/20 Championships in Bedford next month (June 20/21).

 

 

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