Indoor Round-Up

WGwEL athletes were in action indoors over the weekend at the England age group championships in Birmingham, where Paul Scanlan picked up a silver medal over 400m, at the McCain Inter-City Challenge in Cardiff, the Scottish Indoor Championships in Glasgow, and at Lee Valley and in Poland during the previous week.

A week after gaining bronze in the Ireland senior Championships, Paul Scanlan proved he was over the stomach bug that held him back in Belfast, running a second and a half quicker in Birmingham at the England (Open) Indoor U/20 Championships. After winning his heat in 49.23 secs, Paul then produced a personal best of 48.25 secs to win his semi-final, before just losing out in the final, where he placed 2nd with 48.44 secs. Another producing personal bests in Birmingham was Omololu Abiodun, placing 5th in the U/20 60m semi-final with 7.09 secs, before placing 4th over 200m with 22.09 secs, having improved his previous personal best of 22.52 secs, twice in qualifying, with 21.99 secs in his heat and 21.84 secs in his semi-final.

Competing at the Scottish Championships in Glasgow, Francis Smith picked up two medals, placing 3rd over 200m with 22.86 secs, and winning over 60mH with 8.36 secs. At the McCain Inter City Challenge held in Cardiff, Carl Fletcher threw 16.79m in the shot, and Kim Murray reached 5.70m in the long jump.

At Lee Valley during the week at the Showtime Super Series meeting, a number of Woodford's sprinters were in action. Sam Watts recorded time of 7.04 secs and 7.03 secs over 60m. Omololu Abiodun 7.13 secs twice, Colin Wint 7.44 secs and 7.48 sec, U/17 Joseph Dewer impressed with 7.39 secs and 7.26 secs, triple jumper Peter Karibo 7.60 secs, and Jason Greenidge 7.08 secs. Over 200m Savion Williams limped in after suffering injury in 26.38 secs and Oloaluwa Abiodun recorded 24.89 secs . Over 400m Dan Yaxley recorded a personal best of 52.99 secs.

The previous weekend, Woodford's Bognor Regis based Polish high jump international, and recent new father, Rober Wolski returned to Poland to contest the Poland indoor national championships in Spala. where he was a little disappointed to place 2nd with 2,18m, having cleared 2.24m in preparation on the Wednesday at Bydgoszcz.