BAL Premiership Match Two
The second BAL Premiership fixture of the season took place at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium on Saturday. WGwEL’s senior men’s team were some way short of full strength for a variety of reasons, and several other teams were at a different strength form the first fixture at Copthall, which Woodford had won. On this occasion, the home team, Birchfield Harriers ran out winners with 360 points, and having been 3rd in the first fixture now lead the division with 14 league points. Newham were 3rd on the day with 306 points and are now 2nd overall with 13 points, and Woodford had to be content with 5th on the day with 275 points and now 3rd overall with 12 points. Shaftesbury surprised with a strong team to place 2nd on Saturday but are back in 5th overall. Belgrave and Windsor again filled the bottom two slots, and with two fixtures left, already look destined for relegation, whilst the battle at the top remains wide open. Before the meeting a 5th place result was about as much as Team Manger Gladys Bird could have hoped for, but with just a little more luck Woodford would have placed 4th, and been challenging for 3rd or 2nd. Bad luck came firstly in the shape of 1m47secs 800m man Damien Moss, feeling a recurrence of an Achilles injury minutes before the 800m start and having to jog round judiciously in last place to protect the injury, later with Stuart Harvey picking up an injury during the javelin competition, and at the end of the meeting when the 4x100m squad were disqualified for what appeared to be a very marginal faulty changeover.
Missing a number of top throwers Woodford’s team score did not get off to the usual strong start. In the hammer, Mark Dry was not at his best, having been ill the previous week. In the circumstances his 66.71m effort was valuable, as he placed 5th. Missing Andy Frost, out with a groin injury following last week’s UK Championships, Devon Douglas filled the “B” slot and was 8th with 33.26m Devon has made significant progress this season in the discus where he has gone out to 52m, but unfortunately wasn’t able to reproduce that form on Saturday, 8th in the “A” with 42.30m, but showed a glimpse of his best form with a marginal foul of close to 50m in the 3rd round. Devon was however in good shot form, and placed 4th in that “B” event with 14.33m. In the “A” shot Carl Fletcher was 3rd with 16.53m, having earlier placed 6th in the “B” discus with 40.31m. The javelin sadly saw Stuart Harvey pick up, what appeared to be a hip injury and he was reduced to 58.38m, which placed 3rd in the “B”. Simon Bennett, as consistent as ever was 4th in the “A” with 60.57m.
Tosin Oke, who has been in such good form this season, gained valuable points. Ahead of a trip to Nairobi to compete for Nigeria in the African Championships, and despite using a very short approach in the triple jump he was still good enough to win the “A” competition with 15.32m, whilst training partner, Sayo Ojo won the “B” with 14.06m. Earlier in the long jump, a competition plagued by no-jumps as the blustery winds played havoc with the athletes' run-ups, Tosin had placed 5th with 6.82m (-1.1), with Adrian Stamp, 4th in the “B” with 6.43m w (+3.1). The high jump saw junior, Billy Falconer in action, placing 5th in the “B” with 1.90m, whilst in the “A”, Robert Wolski, won with 2.15m, but pulled out of attempts at 2.20m, hampered by a knee problem. In the Pole Vault Christian North was 5th 4.60m, whilst physio, and ex-decathlete Chris Awde gained a valuable couple of points in clearing a height in the “B”.
With injuries, and junior international duty affecting the available sprinters, the sprint events were always going to be tough. In the 100m, Colin Wilson, was again called into “A” string action, and placed 7th with 11.02 secs (+1.0). Hurdler, Dan Davis filled the ‘B” string, and was 6th with 11.00 secs (+1.8). In the 200m, 400m man Nick Leavey moved down to 200m, and was rewarded with a fine
personal best of 21.29 secs (+1.7) as he placed 3rd in the “A”. In the “B”, Ramone Smith, gamely stepped up to 200m and placed 7th with 25.53 secs (+0.8). In the 400m, Vincent Ogedengbe, placed 3rd with 48.36m. He had been caught unawares by the event’s starting time, and otherwise would probably have won. The “B” event did see a win as Athens’ Olympic Nigerian 4x400m bronze medallist Musa Audu, in first serious outing of the season recorded 48.41 secs. The hurdles events brought some good points. Francis Smith, slowing coming back to good form was 5th in the “A” race with 53.18 secs, with Dan Bray producing a season’s best of 54.03 secs for 3rd in the “B”. In the 110m hurdles, not long after his 100m race, Dan Davis was 4th with 14.42 secs (-0.2) and Francis Smith was back in action with 2nd in 14.98 secs (+0.4).
In the middle distance events, in the “B” 800m, saw Chris Reynolds 4th with 1m56.62 secs. Over 1500m juniors Alex Cornwell and Omar Mansour were in action. Alex the reigning English Schools senior 1500m champion ran well and placed 3rd in 3m52.93 secs, with Omar gaining useful “B” string points with 4th in 4m02.83 secs. The 5000m was a tough race in the hot conditions, Matt Barnes-Smith 7th with 15m16.61 secs, and Dan Agustus, 3rd in the “B” with with 15m18.57 secs. The steeplechase, saw debutant Ryan Mckinlay 5th in a useful 9m29.28 secs, and Angus Holford 5th in the “B” with 10m20.99 secs. The 4x100m squad of Colin Wilson, Dan Davis, Francis Smith and Nick Leavey were disqualified, but the meeting ended on a high note as the 4x400 squad of Musa Audu, Vincent Ogedengbe, Dan Bray and Nick Leavey were comfortable winners with 3m12.92 secs.
Most of the Club ranking lists have been updated to include results up to and including this weekend's.
Full results available here.