Southern Athletics League Match 4

The fourth SAL took place on a cold rainy July day at Lea Valley. Although the weather was not conducive to a good meet, the day and some of the performances were very competitive. Thanks to the efforts of Sam Watts, Peter Kirabo, Nusrat Ceesay, Katie Skelding and Omololu Abiodun Woodford were only 2 points off maximum points in the 100m and 200m. Mention must also go to our new young recruit Matt McLaughlin who, although an 800m specialist and the weather being inclement, managed to lower his 400m PB to 49.51. (See also the Track & Field Round-Up for more specifics on top performances.)

This being the SAL, the motto “team before the individual” is recited to try and get athletes to fill gaps. No one exemplified this better then Maxine Davies who did the tried and trusted 800m, 1500m, 3000m treble, giving her 30 minutes to get home and changed before disappearing into the heart of Essex for a friend's wedding. Mention must also go to Daniel Yaxley for a 2.01 800m followed by a 54s 400m; Zoe Watson for a 63s 400m (just behind our a-string Claire Leckie) followed by 3000m and 1500m, and Harold Wyber for the mountain fitness session of 3000m flat followed by 3000m s/c. It was also good to see the return of two excellent athletes: Ron Daniel, who won the b-string 800m with a SB 2.15; and Jamie Nunn who was 2nd in the 3000m, which was one of the better races for the day. Jamie also had to survive a scare before the race as he was erroneously told it was a 5000m not a 3000m by his team-mates as he started to warm up. A panic followed, until someone politely pointed out to the team mates that the schedule clearly said 3000m. This is not the conventional way to raise your heart rate before a race, so apologies were made.

In the field Ayamba Akim showed her class by winning the high jump by some margin, as did Mitchell Jarvis in the long jump. Then in the triple jump we had two class performers in Prince Ezenwa and Peter Kirabo who did 15.23m and 14.28m respectively. Devon Douglas won the men’s Shot Putt but mention also goes to Youcef Zatat who topped the b-strings and was less then a meter behind Devon, throwing in competition the 7.26k shot putt for the first time.

We also had a 1 - 2 in the mens Discus with Tom Norman winning the A and Devon winning the B. And Hollie Redman won the ladies Discus with a winning throw of 37.92m. Harry Clarke came first in the A string hammer and at his first competition using a 7.26k launched it to 48.34m. Fergus Harford won the B string only a meter down on his season’s best in not very good conditions. Then Youcef Zatat and, in his third field event, Devon Douglas, secured two second places in the A and B string Javelin.

But the performance of the day came in the last event of the day and the last leg. With the Woodford men’s team winning the 4 x 100m relay, the pressure was on to show Newham which club were the kings of speed. With many athletes having left, the men’s 4 x 400m team were left one short. Then stepped up Alan James who, having come only to babysit as his wife was officiating, took the opportunity of his son falling asleep to do the superman changing act in the toilet and run out as first leg on the track. A solid leg was followed by Karim Ali who had done the 1500m earlier in the day, and whose legspeed took everyone by surprise, not least Peter Kirabo, our third leg runner, who was still putting on his shoes as Ali was in the home straight. The third leg though was solid but we found ourselves in third place going into the final leg, some 30m down on the leader. Omololu Abiodun was on this final leg, and he breezed into second. But the Newham runner was no pushover and a gap was maintained but, as Omolulo said at the end, he started to see the Newham athlete tie up on the top bend, and Omololu, maintaining his form brilliantly, got him 40m from the finish. The only shame was that there were no watches on what must have been a very impressive individual time.