National Junior League, April 18th
The National Junior League season got underway on Sunday with the first round of the Southern Premier Division at Barnet Copthall Stadium. Despite, and like some other clubs in this early season fixture, missing athletes in some events the WGwEL combined U/20 men's and women's team performed well finishing 5th with 408 points, just 5 behind Enfield on 413 in 4th. Host club Shaftsbury Barnet Harriers won with 518 points. The unusually fine April weather helped performances, and amongst a number of good results, personal bests over 200m for both Sam Watts and Paul Scanlan were perhaps the highlights.
World Youth (U/18) Championship 200m finalist Sam Watts, whose aim this season will be to qualify for the World Junior (U/20) Championships where the standard is a fast 21.10 secs, got his season off to a fine start with a personal best of 21.36 secs (+1.0) as he comfortably won the "A" race from the outside lane. In the "B" race, 400m specialist Paul Scanlan who has already qualified for the Irish team to compete over that event at the European Youth (U/18)Olympics, moved down to 200m, and he too was rewarded with a personal best of 22.34 secs (+0.8) as he placed 2nd. English Schools 1500m champion, Alex Cornwell, got his season off to a good start, as he took a comfortable double victory over 800m and 1500m with marks of 1m57.35 secs and 4m03.59 secs respectively. There were other useful distance results from Dan Yaxley, 5th in the 2km s/ch with 6m42,40 secs, and James Stockings 3rd in the "B" 1500m with 4m26.29 secs. Although only 7th in the "B" 800m it was notable that Darren Southcott turned out, the day after making his senior debut in the National 12 stage relay. Over 400m there was also a personal best for Austin Joseph who placed 3rd in 49.36 secs, having earlier placed 6th in the 100m with 11.47 secs. Omololu Abiodun was 4th in the "B" 100m with 11.44 secs.
In the men's field events, highlights included two seconds in the hammer events for Peter Clarke and Kurt Martyr with 59.60m and 35.48m; two 3rd's in the discus from Youcef Zatat and Kurt Martyr with 40.89m and 28.09m; Youcef also picked up good points in the "A" shot, 3rd with 11.81m and "B" javelin 2nd with 42.46m, whilst Tom Richards was 5th in the "A" with 48.02m; Billy Falconer with 1.95m for 2nd in the high jump, and Peter Karibo who was 3rd in the triple jump with 13.38m and also got useful points in both the long jump and high jump. Both men's relay teams were victorious, the 4x100m squad of David Olupitan, Omololu Abiodun, Sam Watts and Austin Joseph, just held off Enfield with both teams clocking 42.74 secs. The 4x400m was a little more comfortable as John Pride, Tom Larkin, Paul Scanlan and Austin Joseph combined to win in 3m27.38 secs.
Amongst the women's events, points proved a little harder to come by, but all athletes competed admirably with many competing in two or more events. Of note was Kitty Eleyae's efforts in 4 events, 3rd over 200m with 25.99 secs (+1.0), 3rd in the long jump with 5.33m, 6th in the shot with 8.42m and 7th over 100m with 12..71 secs w (+3.1). Also busy was Sam Moodie , placing 3rd in the high jump with 1.60m, 3rd in the pole vault with 2.90m, 5th in the javelin with 24.16m and 4th in the "B" discus with 22.66m. Holly Pattie-Belleli was 5th in the 100mH with 16.60 secs w (+2.3), and 4th in the 400m H with 69.18 secs. Fellow multi-eventer, Rachel Dean was 2nd in the triple jump with 10.48m and 5th in the "B" shot with 8.04m. Sophie Fuhr placed 4th in the 400m with 62.04 secs, and 5th in the 400mH with 70.59 secs. Chloe Michaud was 4th in the "B" high jump with 1.50m and 6th in the "B" 200m with 27.99 secs. Ronan Mackenzie was 3rd in the "B" long jump with 4.48m, and 2nd in the "B" triple jump with 10.17m, and whilst a long way from her fittest Chelsea Ives gained valuable points in the "B" 400m and "B" javelin. The "B" pole vault saw a good 2nd from Ashley Robertson with 2.75m. In the longer track events, Georgina Ferrari was 6th over 800m with 2m35.97 secs, Claudia Conway 4th in the "B" with 2m30.1 secs, and in the 3000m there were some good points as triathlete, Becky Hewitt was 3rd with 11m06.0 secs, whilst in the "B" Lauren Freeman was 4th with 12m16.13secs.
The 4x100m relay team ( Kitty Eleyae, Rachel Dean, Ronnan Mackenzie and Chloe Michaud ) were 7th in 52.52 secs, and the 4x400m team ( Sophie Fuhr, Georgina, Ferrari, Holly Pattie-Belleli and Chelsea Ives) were 6th in 4m 24.93secs.