Track & Field Round-Up - Updated
WGwEL athletes, representing their universities were given the opportunity to compete in London's 2012 Olympic Stadium as it hosted the British Universities Championships (BUCS) as the official test event for the main stadium. Despite the very cold conditions over the bank holiday weekend, there were nevertheless some good early season performances, including BUCS titles for Kitty Eleyae and Stephanie Gaynor, and good marks from Mark Dry, Sam Watts, Tara Bird, Tracey Duncan and others as they competed in high quality UKA invitation races run in conjunction with the BUCS programme. There was also news of two Olympic B standards for Woodford athletes competing in Guadeloupe.
Kitty Eleyae's BUCS title came in the long jump where in the final round she went over 6m for the first time to record a winning leap of 6.11m (-0.8). Kitty had earlier placed 5th in the 100m final with 12.35 secs (0.6) having recorded 12.21 secs (-0.4) to qualify. Stephanie Gaynor took the women's 100mH title with a good 13.73 secs (0.0), having qualified with a marginally faster 13.72 secs (-0.2).
First year senior Sam Watts was one of two winning Woodford athletes in the invitation UKA races. In cold conditions on Sunday evening he won over 200m recording 21.16 secs (-0.8), a race in which Jordan Kirby-Polidore also ran but was disqualified having placed around 3rd for a lane infringement. The other winner was Mark Dry who took the hammer with 70.32m. In the invitation 800m Tara Bird placed 2nd with 2m03.46 secs, and also placing 2nd was Tracey Duncan in the 400mH with 59.07 secs. Others competing in the UKA races, were, Richard Alleyne, 6th, 110mH 14.02 secs (-0.8), Jess Sparke, 6th 3000m 9m11.78 secs, and Jon Cook, 7th 800m 1m50.63 secs.
Other athletes to make finals of the BUCS events were: Peter Kirabo, close to his personal best in the triple jump where he placed 5th with 14.57m; Tom Phillips had a rare track outing over 5000m placing 14th in the final with 15m07.09 secs, having qualified with 15m00.06 secs. Darren Southcott recorded 15m52.14 secs in those heats. In the 10,000m Angus Holford was 23rd in the "A" final with 33m54.89 secs. Junior Ejehu reached both the 100m and 200m semi-finals, recording 10.84 secs (-0.4) after a 10.75 secs (-0.2) heat in the former, and 22.13 secs (0.1) after a 21.87 secs (-0.5) heat in the latter. Nnamdi Umeh recorded 11.55 secs and 23.61 secs in the heats of those events. Both Paul Scanlan and Austin Joseph made the 400m semi-finals, Paul recording 49.40 secs for 5th and Austin 50.02 secs for 4th. Also making a semi-final was Kathrine Foy who recorded 2m17.10 secs in the 800m, and Georgie Lou Sales with 4m49.73 secs in the 1500. Elaine O'Neil progressed to the 200m semi but did not start after recording 25.29 secs (-0.9) in her heat. Sidne Sales recorded 4m56.41 secs in the heats of the 1500m whilst Kate Stockings recorded 8m 39.21 secs in the 2km s/ch, despite a fall (quite possibly the first ever in the new Olympic Stadium !). In the Pole Vault Alasdair Strange failed at his opening height and Anthony Oshodi failed to get a mark in the discus. HCA members in action included Myra Perkins who won the hammer with 56.63m and Moe Sasegbon, 3rd HJ with 1.72m.
Competing in significantly warmer conditions than the 8-10 deg C the athletes had to endure in teh Olympic Stadium, Joice Maduaka and Shana Cox were both in action in a meeting at Saint Martin, Guadeloupe on Saturday. Over 200m Joice placed 2nd recording 23.25 secs (-0.1), and Shana was 3rd over 400m with 51.97 secs. Both times were Olympic qualifying B standards. Shana also raced over 200m and recorded 23.59 secs. Also overseas ,but back in chilly Europe, Eugene Ayanful raced in Pavia, Italy, placing 6th over 100m with 10.79 secs (-0.1) a little below his fine recent fine form in the US, where in kinder conditions the former European junior 100m bronze medalist recently set a personal best of 10.34 secs (-1.9) iat a meeting in Azuza.
Earlier last week at Watford there was some good middle distance running, over 800m, U/20 Matt MacLoughlin recorded 1m52.12 secs and Dan Yaxley 1m57.52 secs, and over 3000m Tom Beedell recorded 8m35.20 secs.