South of England indoor Championships; Other Indoor news - Updated
The indoor Track and Field season began in earnest at the weekend with Part One of The South of England Championships at Lee Valley on Sunday, which focused largely on the 400m and 800m events. Of the small number of WGwEL athletes that competed, there were gold medals over 400m for Nick Leavey, Paul Scanlan, and Tara Bird, and a bronze over 800m for Kathrine Foy. There was also news of some useful performances from the Windsor Open Meeting.
England’s Commonwealth Games 4x400m medallist Nick Leavey was a comfortable winner of the senior men’s 400m in 47.90 secs, whilst in the U/20 event, European Youth Olympics representative Paul Scanlan was similarly impressive as he won in a fine 48.56 ses. In the senior women’s event, Tara Bird also had a very comfortable win, by almost 3 seconds, in a time of 56.52 secs. In the heats of the senior event Dan Bray qualified for the semis with 50.78 secs but, protecting a hamstring, decided not to contest it. In the junior men’s event, Omololu Abiodun contested his first ever indoor 400m, and reached the final where he was 6th in 52.88 secs, having recorded a personal best of 52.18 secs in his semi-final.
Woodford’s other medal came in the senior women’s 800m, where Kathrine Foy ran strongly for 3rd, in a race won by European 400mH bronze medallist Perri Shakes-Drayton. Kathrine clocked 2m17.36 secs. In the U/20 men’s 800m Dan Yaxley recorded 2m04.60 for 4th place in his heat.
At the Windsor Open Meeting at Eton, Dan Davis continued in the fine hurdling form with which he ended the last sumnmer season. Racing over 60mH he recorded two victories, in times of 8.04 secs and 8.03secs. In the flat 60m, Jason Greenidge recorded times of 7.24 secs and 7.19 secs, whilst Tom Norman, was in action in the shot, winning with a put of 14.43m.