National Junior League Match 2

A good all-round team performance saw WGwEL's U/20 team place 5th in the second match in the Southern Premier Division of the National Junior League at Eton on Sunday. 

Last year's UK U/20 number two in the shot, Anthony Oshodi, recorded a season's best of 17.00m to win the shot and the Athlete of the Match award. Anthony also picked up further good points as he won the discus with 48.03m and placed 5th in the hammer with 42.14m.

The other throwing events also brought good points, as this season's UK second ranked U/17 discus thrower, Youcef Zatat, threw the heavier under/20 implement and won the"B" string with 42.41m and also won the "B" shot with 11.81m and placed 5th in the "B" hammer with 21.49m. In the javelin, Tom Richards was 2nd with 43.37m and Ben Phillips 4th in the "B" with 31.16m; this was after also placing 4th in the 400mH with 58.71 secs, an event in which John Pride, in the "B" string improved his personal best by over 2 seconds to win in 56.64 secs. Another busy athlete in the field was Peter Kirabo, who placed 2nd in the "B" high jump, equalling his personal best of 1.80m, as Billy Falconer placed 2nd in the "A" with 1.90m. Peter was also 6th in the long jump with 5.97m and 7th in the triple jump with 13.02m. Amongst other notable men's performances were second places over 400m and 800m for Austin Joseph and Omar Mansour with 49.63 secs and 1m55.89 secs respectively, and personal bests over 200m for Omololu Abioden, 4th in 22.72 secs (-0.7), and David Olupitan 3rd in the "B" with 23.17 secs (-2.2). There were also personal bests in the middle distances, from Darren Soutcott 5th in the 1500m with 4m13.64 secs and James Stockings 3rd in the "B" with 4m19.97 secs. The men's 4x100m relay team were 5th, and the 4x400m team 3rd.

In the women's events points were a little harder to come by, but all the athletes contributed admirably. New member Elycia Metaxas-Belt placed 5th in the discus with 29.36m, 4th in the shot with 9.81m and 7th in the javelin with 26.50m. Multi-eventer Rachel Dean was 2nd in the triple jump with 10.82m, 3rd in the long jump with 5.08m, 6th in the "B" javelin with 16.75m and 5th in the "B" shot with 8.05m, whilst fellow multi-eventer, Hollie Pattie-Bellili was 6th in the 400m with 70.04 secs, but failed to finish the 100mH. The high jump contributed good points, with Sam Moodie 2nd with 1.60m, and Chloe Michaud equal first in the "B" with a personal best of 1.55m. Chloe was also 5th over 100m with 12.79 secs (+0.1) - another personal best. Ronan McKenzie was 4th in the "B" long jump with 4.35m and won the "B" triple jump with 10.06m. Ashley Robertson placed 4th in the "B" pole vault with 2.90m, but Sam Moodie failed to clear a height. Sophie Fuhr gained good points over both 400m and 400mH, placing 4th with 62.68 secs and 4th with 69.12 secs. Over 1500 s/ch Kate Stockings was 5th with 6m12.79 secs, and Lauren Freeman 3rd in the "B" with 6m46.69 secs. Triathlete Becky Hewitt competed over both 1500, 8th with 5m 33.74 secs and 3000m, 5th with 11m19.82 secs. Chelsea Ives picked up useful points in both the "B" 400m and "B" 1500m.

There were many other fine performances that contributed to the good team result and full results can be found here.