BAL Premiership, Match One
The British Athletics League Premiership got underway at Barnet Copthall Stadium on Saturday. A good all round team performance saw WGwEL’s senior men win the match on Saturday, ahead of reigning BAL champions Newham and Essex Beagles. Woodford scored 348 points from NEB with 322, Birchfield with 277 and City of Manchester on 277. Whilst all athletes contributed greatly to the victory, over what was admittedly a NEB squad some way from full strength, some very strong field event performances laid the foundation. The best of several very good field performances, came from Tosin Oke who won the triple jump with a fine new personal best of 17.05m, a distance that currently ranks the former European Junior Champion 9th on this year’s world lists.
Tosin Oke’s victory in the triple jump with 17.05m (+0.8) improved his own WGwEL Club record, and also set a new BAL record. Tosin’s training partner Sayo Ojo showed a significant return to form as he took the “B” event with a leap of 14.66m (-0.8). Tosin had earlier had a rare outing in the long jump where he placed 5th with 7.10m, with James Wright, 5th in the “B” with 6.58m. The high jump was a high standard competition with four athletes over 2.20m, as Woodford’s Polish international Robert Wolski winning with 2.23m, to currently rank him just outside the world’s top 30. Robert had 3 good attempts at 2.28m, whilst in the “B”, Martin Lloyd was pleased with his outdoor season’s best of 2.15m. The pole vault saw Alasdair Strange place 2nd with 5.00m, and have 3 good attempts at 5.20m. In the “B”, and not quite at his best, Christian North was 3rd with 4.60m. The hammer saw a fine domestic competition, with three athletes over 70m. Mark Dry was 2nd in the “A” with 70.85m, and Andy Frost won the “B” with 67.69m. The discus saw Emeka Udechuku 2nd with 57.34m and Tom Norman 3rd in the “B” with 52.71m, whilst in the shot, Emeka took the “B” competition with 16.87m, as Carl Fletcher placed 2nd in the “A” with 17.14m. The javelin had Stuart Harvey 4th with 62.90m and Simon Bennett won the “B” with 60.12m.
On the track, and missing some top sprinters, Colin Wilson was forced into “A” string 100m duty, and despite a season’s best of 10.91 secs (+1.1) had to settle for 8th, with hurdler Dan Davis placing 4th in the “B” with 11.04 secs (-1.4). Dan later placed a very close 2nd in the 110mH with 14.27 secs (-2.7), as Francis Smith placed 2nd in the “B” with 15.03 secs (-1.1). Francis had earlier placed 5th over 400mH with 54.07 secs, still suffering from heavy bruising after falling at the 6th hurdle at last week’s Loughborough International. In the "B" 400mH Dan Bray was back in BAL action for the first time since 2006 when a serious knee injury curtailed his progress. He placed a good 4th in 54.69 secs. The 200m saw young Sam Watts stepping up to senior “A” string action, placing 6th with21.84 secs, and 100m specialist, Eugene Ayanful, 8th in the “B” with 22.37 secs. In the 400m Nick Leavey was just outside his season’s best, 4th in 47.63 secs, whilst, in the “B” World Youth 4th placer, Nathan Wake won with a season’s best of 47.65 secs. In the middle distances, debutant Kevin Kane, gamely added the 800m at short notice to his planned 1500m outing, and placed a creditable 3rd in 1m52.78 secs, as Chris Reynolds, slowly making progress back to his prior 1m 47secs form, placed 2nd in the “B” with 1m53.84 secs. Over 1500m a race that gradually built up in pace, Kevin was also 3rd, in 3m50.36 secs, with junior, Ronnie Sparke, 4th in the “B” with 3m54.68 secs. Dan Agustus and Bertie Powell found themselves in a fast race over 3000m, Dan 7th in 8m40.48 secs and Bertie just outside his pb, 5th in the “B” with 8m43.17 secs. In the 3000m s/ch, 1500m/3000m athlete Gareth Lloyd took part in only his second effort over the barriers and placed 5th in 10m05.57 secs, with Angus Holford, only just having finished his university finals placing 5th in the “B” with 10m21.58 secs.
The 4x100m squad of Colin Wilson, Dan Davis, James Wright and Eugene Ayanful combined well to place 3rd in 41.82 secs, with the 4x400m team of Chris Reynolds (49.8 secs), Dan Awde (46.6 secs), Paul Scanlan (49.1 secs) and Nick Leavey (46.4 secs) also 3rd in a good 3m11.89 secs.
Full results here