British Universities Championships

Competing at Bedford in this weekend's British Universities Championships there were gold medals for Tara Bird and Kim Murray and a silver for Alastair Williamson, with several other WGwEL athletes also in action for their universities.

With Bedford's very windy conditions over the weekend - wind speeds of up to 6 m/s were recorded in the sprints - defending champion Tara Bird opted to run in the pack through a slow first 400m outside 65 secs, only moving into the lead in the home straight to retain her title in 2m07.19 secs, ahead of fellow "On Camp with Kelly" athletes, Dani Christmas and Ejiro Okoro. Kim Murray performed admirably in the long jump as she took the title with a best ever leap of 6.07m, although at the time of writing the wind speed is not known. Another to set a lifetime best was Alistair Williamson as he took silver in the hammer with 59.66m

Making it though to their finals were, over 200m, Nick Leavey who placed 4th in 21.95 secs (w?), after a windy 21.61 secs (+4.6) in qualification; and over 110mH, Callum Priestly who was also 4th, with 14.10 secs (w?)  and Daniel Davis 6th in 14.34 secs (w?). Earlier, in qualification, Callum had recordecd 13.96 secs w (+6.0)  and Daniel 14.33 secs w (+5.4).

 Athletes in action in the qualifying rounds included; Pavidra Sivananadarajh over 100m and 200m with 13.33 secs (+1.2) and 28.24 secs w (+4.1); Gareth Turner over 400m with 53.65 secs: James Meadows recording p.b.'s over both 400m and 800m with 51.57 secs and 1m57.40 secs; Craig Berg over 5000m  with 15m48.21 secs; Jordon Fleary over 110mH with 15.06 secs w (+5.0). HCA member Carl Goose recorded 1m57.19 secs to qualify for the 800m semis but progressed no further after recording 2m02.16 secs