Indoor Round-Up, 11th January

WGwEL athletes were in indoor action at the weekend. There were some fine pole vault results from Loughborough and Cardiff, including a Scottish Indoor Record for Alasdair Strange. At Lea Valley in the South of England Championships there were several good performances, including 800m titles for Omar Mansour and Katherine Foy, and a 400m personal best for Paul Scanlan.

In Cardiff in the UWIC Pole Vault competition, Christian North took part in his first competition of the indoor season and won with a clearance of 5.05m, whilst Maria Seager was 4th with 3.95m in a high standard women's competition. However, there was even better news from Loughborough where Alasdair Strange improved his lifetime best by 2cm as he cleared 5.15m as he set a new Scottish Indoor Record, improving the old mark by 5cm

At Lea Valley, Omar Mansour ran very maturely to retain his U/20 800m title, leaving his effort to the bell and running very strongly over the last 200m to clock 1m55.72 secs. In her first season as a senior Katherine Foy was a comfortable winner of the women's 800m in a useful season opening time of 2m14.98 secs. Diana Kennedy picked up the bronze medal with 2m26.53secs.

Over 400m, first year U/20, 16 year old Paul Scanlan impressed through the rounds, and most present thought he had taken victory on the line in the final, but the photo-finish proved otherwise as Paul was placed 2nd by 1/100 th of a second, but was nevertheless rewarded with a fine personal best of 48.90 secs - all the more impressive after heat and semi final clockings of 50.04 secs and 50.17 secs, all within the space of four hours. Also picking up a silver medal in the senior women's event was Tara Bird who clocked 56.04 secs, behind fellow international and training partner Dawn Hunt. In the senior event, British international Nick Leavey, a medalist in the 4x400m from last year's European Indoor Championships, led at the break, only to be badly baulked on the bend by eventual winner Windsor's Nigel Levine who was very lucky not to be disqualified. Nick never fully recovered from this incident and was run out on the line and placed 5th in 48.53 secs.

In action in the heats were Zoe Watson who clocked 64.04 secs in the women's 400m, Ben Phillips who progressed to the U/20 400m semi-finals after a pb in his heat of 52.89 secs, and Dan Yaxley who contested the heats where he also recorded a pb of 53.94 secs.

Also included in this meeting were the women's age group indoor pentathlon championships, and sisters Hannah and Hollie Pattie-Belilli both picked up medals. In the U/15 event Hannah placed 3rd with a score of 2360 points, whilst Hollie took silver in the U/17 event with 2780 points. Both scores were personal bests, and there was an individual personal best of 1.41m in the high jump for Hannah, as Hollie equalled hers with 1.48m, and a 60mH personal best for Hollie with 9.51 secs.

Also in action at Loughborough, over 60m, was Tim Abeyie, who got is indoor season off to start with times of 6.94 secs and 6.90 secs. Jason Greenidge clocked 7.23 secs and 7.21 secs.

The second half of the South of England Championships, which will include the 60m and 60mH, take place at Lea Valley next weekend.