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Indoor and Other T & F News

Indoor action this weekend focused on the England (Open) Age Group Championships held in Birmingham, where there were medals for Jordan Kirby-Polidore and Paul Scanlan, and from the British Universities (BUCS) Championships at Sheffield where there was a title for Stephanie Gaynor. There was also some news from New Zealand.

In his first indoor outing of the season, English Schools senior 200m champion Jordan Kirby-Polidore picked up a bronze medal over 60m as he placed 3rd in the England (Open) indoor championshipos in Birmingham. He clocked a personal best of 6.88 secs, but the following day was disqualified for a lane infringement after winning his heat of the 200m. Silver medalist over 400m in the U/20 event last year, Paul Scanlan also picked up bronze this year with his 48.98 secs for 3rd in the 400m. He was marginally faster in his semi where he recorded 48.92 secs. There were also two good shot putt performances; from Youcef Zatat 4th in the U/20 event with a personal best of 14.56m, and from Hugh Williams 6th in the U/17 event with 13.06m.

At Sheffield in the BUCS Championships there was a title over 60mH from Stephanie Gaynor as she recorded 8.62 secs for her win. Also making a final was Alex Cornwell who placed 7th in the 1500m with 4m03.04 secs, but had qualified with 3m57.15 secs. In qualifying rounds, Junior Ejehu recorded 7.08 secs in the 60m semi-final, in the women's 800m semi there was a season's best for Kathrine Foy of 2m15.38 secs, and Elaine O'Neil who comfortably won her 60m heat with 7.63 secs, but did not start the semi-final. HCA member Moe Sasegbon was 4th in the high jump with 1.72m.

From New Zealand, London based Kiwi Para-Olympian, Tim Prendergast, who is looking to qualify for the New Zaealnd team for the London Games, reported on good progress. After recording just outside 2m for 800m indoors at Lee Valley at the end of January, Tim last week in New Zealnd ran 1m58.13 secs for 800m, and this weekend in the Aukland Championships, an encouraging 3m59 secs for 1500m.