Track and FIeld Round-Up
WGwEL athletes were in action, domestically at the BMC Grand Prix at Watford and at the Bedford International Games on Sunday, and others competed around Europe. The Watford meeting, which often produces a clutch of personal bests, saw Tom Phillips improve his over 1500m.
The Watford BMC meeting which is usually the classiest middle distance fixture on the domestic calendar, produced plenty of good competitive races, but maybe not the outstanding times hoped for in the “A” 800m events, where some fanciful pace-making ruined both as opportunities for fast times.
Woodford’s Tara Bird was in the “B” 800, where she, and others narrowly avoided a pile up as one athlete stumbled at the 600m mark, despite losing ground Tara recovered to go past the leaders, eventually winning, relatively comfortabley in 2m05.29 secs. In other women’s 800m races, Emily Moss was 8th in the “C” race in 2m09.41 secs, and in the “D” race Katherine Foy was 9th in 2m20.05 secs. In the men’s 800m races; in the “C” race Oli Heeks was 7th in 1m52.56secs; in the “D” Jon Cook also 7th in a season’s best of 1m51.90secs; in the “H” race Gavin Lewis was 5th in 1m55.10 secs and Omar Mansour, 8th in 1m55.50 secs.
Tom Phillips’ personal best came in the “F” race where he ran pretty much even paced to record his best ever of 3m50.91 secs for 2nd. In the women’s “B” race, Jess Sparke was 5th, in a very encouraging 4m17.64 secs.
Full results here
Athleticos videos here
At Bedford on Sunday the rain poured all day, and as usual it was windy, with sprinters battling strong headwinds. Sam Watts victory in the “A” 200m in 21.93 secs (-4.2) was a good effort in the conditions. Nick Leavey was 4th in the same race in 22.38 secs (-4.2). Over 400m Tara Bird placed 2nd in the “B” race with 55.44 secs, whilst Paul Scanlan was 4th in the men's equivalent, recording 49.55 secs. In the field, Kim Murray was 3rd in the long jump with 5.97m (+1.8), and Hannah Frankson, 4th in the triple jump with 12.97m (w?). Stuart Harvey was 5th in the javelin with 61.33m , whilst Emeka Udechuku was 6th in the discus with 52.60m. Other Woodford athletes at Bedford included : Eugene Ayanful, 2nd “B” 100m 10.86 secs (-1.7); Durtore Adetoyi 1st “C” 100m 10.92 secs (-2.4); Stephanie Gaynor 5th 100m H 14.27 secs (-2.2); Funsho Joseph 6th “H” 100m 11.54 secs (-4.7), Jason Greenidge 100m 11.39 secs (-2.8); Sayo Ojo TJ 14.31m,and Tom Norman DT 47.86m .
Full results here.
In a representative match at Loghborough during the week, Eugene Ayanful recorded 10.58 secs to win over 100m (+1.3); Musa Audu was 2nd over 400m in 49.22 secs; Lee Okoroafor was 3rd over 110mH in 15.67 secs (+1.0) and also recorded 46.57m in the javelin and 1.60m in the high jump. Funsho Joseph was 4th in the 100m with 11.15 secs (+1.3) and later 3rd in the 200m with 22.85 secs (+1.7), whilst Musa Audu won the non-scoring race with 22..75 secs (+1.9).
Racing in Europe, in Turin on Friday evening, Robert Wolski cleared 2.19m in the high jump and at Heiden in Holland, Graham Hedman was 2nd over 400m with 47.17 secs, and in Hania, Greece Junior Ejehu was 5th over 100m with 10.87 secs (+0.1) and 4th over 200m with 22.29 secs (+1.0)
At the Essex Schools Championships, Ronan McKenzie won the intermediate triple jump with a leap of 10.79m.