ATHLETICS.

Following relegation last season, Kingston and Polytechnic's Southern Men's League team have certainly started on the right foot if they are to gain promotion this summer.

They managed to win their opening Division Three match at Crawley also getting a fair share of the winners.

They scored 142.5 points to beat North London by five points as well as Ashford (113), City of Salisbury (72) and Haywards Heath (63).

Mark Roberts gained an individual double in winning both the sprint and 400 metres hurdles in 15.7 and 60.7 sec while Kingston and Polytechnic took both relays in 46.9 sec and 3 min 40.6 sec.

Others to chalk up individual successes were Richard Haughton in the 400 metres in 52 sec, Draco Mkpa in the 200 metres in 23.7 sec and Andy Gordon in the 100 metres in 11.5 sec.

St Mary's student Mike Maranzano won the triple jump with 11.53 metres, Gawain Owen the high jump with 1.88 metres and Matt Hawkes the hammer with 42.18 metres.

Gawain's brother, Nick Owen, came up against tough opposition in the shot but still managed to achieve a personal best of 12.82 metres in taking second spot behind international all-rounder Greg Richards from North London (13.28 metres).

Another relegated side, Hercules Wimbledon, made a disastrous start to their Division Two programme, finishing last in their match at Basildon. Only high spot was a win in the 400 metres hurdles B race by veteran Andy Laughton in 62.1 sec, in a time that was faster than the A string winner.

Hercules Wimbledon mustered only 66.5 points behind Newham and Essex Beagles (138), Worthing (128.5), Chelmsford (106) and Wycombe Phoenix (80).

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.