Sam Ige has taken the second best performance of the day prize, worth £60, at the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting on 31st August, after running 10.95 in the 100m. As with the other cash prizes on the day, the award is decided on World Athletics points rather than raw time, and a 10.95 from a sprinter of Ige's calibre still converts into one of the strongest scores of the meeting.
Ige, who competes for Belgrave Harriers as a senior athlete, has had one of the standout seasons in the Momentum Sports group in 2026. His personal best of 10.47 was set at Stratford in August 2025, and he has built consistently on that mark ever since. This season alone he has run inside 10.65 several times, including 10.64 (1.9) for fifth at the England U20 & Senior Track and Field Championships in Bedford in July and 10.60 (0.0) for second place at the IFAM Outdoor meeting in Brussels in May, a strong international outing against senior opposition. He rounded out August with a wind-assisted 10.59 at the Stratford Speed GP Series just days before Kingston, confirming he was in the form of his season heading into the Bob Lewis meeting.
The 200m has been just as productive. Ige has run under 22 seconds regularly through 2026, with a season's best of 21.42 (wind-assisted) at the Surrey County Championships in May and a legal best of 21.47 for the win at the National Athletics League Championship in Stevenage in July. It is an event he has particular history with at Kingston specifically: at last year's Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting, Ige won the 100m in 10.72 and then set a 200m personal best of 21.40 on the same afternoon, a mark that still stands as his fastest 200m to date.
That history makes his return to the podium at this year's meeting a continuation rather than a surprise. Ige has been a fixture on the National Athletics League and Southern Athletics League circuits throughout the season, running for Belgrave Harriers at fixtures in Carshalton, Bromley, Chelmsford and Stevenage alongside senior championship meetings in Bedford and Birmingham. His training has been overseen by coach Richard Holt since 2015, and the steady progression from a 10.6-second sprinter to a consistent sub-10.6 performer over the past two seasons reflects that long-term development.
For Momentum Sports, having an athlete of Ige's standard return to compete at the club's own meeting each year, and continue to produce results that hold up against the World Athletics scoring tables, is exactly the kind of outcome the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting was designed to attract. With the 100m and 200m both firmly part of his programme heading toward the end of the season, his next targets are likely to come back around the low 10.5 and 21.4 marks he has already shown himself capable of this year.
The Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting is run by Momentum Sports and sponsored by TF1 Athletic and Weir Archer Fitness. Full results and more photos from the day will follow.