Indoor and other T & F News

A number of WGEL athletes were in action at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena where they competed in the Avia Indoor Grand Prix. There was also further indoor news including from the Scottish Indoor Championships, and also from Australia.

In a world class meeting in Birmingham, Shana Cox was the best performing Woodford athlete, winning the 400m in an indoor season's best of 52.18 secs. In the women's 800m Tara Bird placed 5th, but nevertheless recorded her best ever indoor time of 2m04.57 secs.

The following day, also in the NIA at the Midland Open, Tara also raced over 400m, recording 54.98 secs for 5th in a high standard race won by Nicola Sanders.

In a very strong high jump competition, Robert Wolski placed 6th on countback with a clearance of 2.20m, but also went close at 2.26m. In the heats of the women's 60m Jeanette Kwakye was not able to recover from a modest start and recorded 7.33 secs for 7th, whilst in the men's 60mH heats Richard Alleyne was also 7th with 76.94 secs.

In a midweek fixture involving Universities and the Services, Musa Audu won over both 200m and 400m with times of 23.09 secs and 52.63 secs, Funshu Joseph recorded 7.31 secs for 60m and 23.67 secs for 200m, and Toyi Durotoye recorded 7.00 secs for 60m. Also competing in midweek in Lievin, France was Sarah Claxton who placed 7th over 60mH with 8.60 secs.

In the Scottish Indoor Championships at Glasgow over the weekend, Francis Smith placed 3rd over 60mH with a season's best of 8.35 secs, whilst from Australia there was a useful early season 3000m s/ch performance from Youcef Abdi as he placed 2nd to Kenyan opposition in Sydney with 8m22.01 secs. Youcef who already holds the s./ch Olympic qualifying mark required by the Australian selectors, had also showed good 5000m form a week before when he recorded a personal best (and WGEL overseas member Club best) of 13m38.41 secs.