Several Woodford athletes were in action at the Loughborough International on Sunday, and amongst several good performances, Woodford athletes placed first and second in both the men’s 800m and steeplechase. There were personal bests for Canaan Solomon (left), Anna Nelson and Cameron Fillery. There was also news from the US and elsewhere.

In decent conditions at Loughborough proceedings were led off by a hammer win for Mark Dry with 72.35m and in the 3000m s/ch Adam Kirk-Smith just got the better of Phil Norman, who had made most of the early pace, both recording season’s bests, Adam with 8m48.09 secs, and Phil with 8m49.54 secs. The 800m saw Dan Rowden, who was representing England, a comfortable winner in 1m47.01 secs, also a season’s best whilst, in 2nd, Canaan Solomon, running for British Universities, recorded a personal best of 1m48.31 secs. 

Another athlete to record a personal best was Anna Nelson who placed 4th in the guest 400mH with 59.64 secs – faster than the Scotland representative ran in the match race. In the men’s 400mH Jack Lawrie (below) was 4th also, with a season’s best of 51.26 secs, as junior and HCA member Declan Gall was 7th with 53.03 secs. In a guest 400m George Vaughan recorded 56.17 secs.

We finished runners-up in the second fixture of the Southern Athletics League season at Perivale on Sunday, having won our opening match. Facing the top 2 teams in division 3N after the first round of matches, a team weakened by an unusual rush of late withdrawals despite fine weather finished ahead of hosts Ealing Southall & Middlesex. However Dacorum and Tring extended their advantage at the top of the table, while finishing well behind the top 3 teams were Ilford and Braintree & District.

Provisional results