Track & Field Round-Up
WGEL Track and Field action was led by performances in the US, where in Philadelphia Shana Cox and Tara Bird were members of strong GB relay team performances at the Penn Relays, and Mark Dry continued his good early season hammer form in California. A small Woodford team also competed in the Southern Athletics League.
Running for GB&NI in the US v The World section of the Penn Relays in Philadelphia, Shana Cox contributed a fine 50.4 sesc, 2nd leg to the GB team which finished just 0.02 secs behind the US.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOtUaL8IIXI&feature=youtu.be
In the women's 4x800m Tara Bird ran the final leg (2m05.0 secs) where she moved ahead of the Canadian team to finish in 4th place (behind the US, Kenya and another US team), as the GB team set a new National Record of 8m13.46 secs.
See post-race interviews
Sadly for Matt Mclaughlin he didn't get to run his final 1200m leg in the distance medley for the GB Team, after Martin Rooney fell on the 400m leg resulting in a d.n.f. for their GB Team. Having missed his run Matt, with scarcely adequate preparation, was added at the last minute to the Mile field, where in the circumstances he performed creditably recording 4m08.60 secs.
Competing in California, at the Payton jordan meeting, Mark Dry continued his fine early season, winning the hammer with 73.75m, and David McCarthy recorded 13m56.80 secs over 5000m.
A small and far from complete Woodford Team competed in the Southern Athletics League fixture at Watford on Saturday. There were however a few good individual performances. Katie Skelding won both the 100m and 200m ( 12.6 secs and 25.9 secs ). Tom Norman won the discus with 52.92m, Chris Linque took the "B" with 43.88m and Hollie Redman the women's with 39.62m, as well as the shot with a p.b. of 10.20m and the javelin with 26.39m. There was a hammer double from Peter Clarke and Fergus Harford with 52.72m and 34.03m respectively. Ayamba Akim won the high jump with 1.70m. On the track, other performances included 2nd places for Tom Beedell in the 2km s/ch with 6m16.1 secs, and Bertie Powell in the 5km with 15m33.6 secs. Notably amongst the other performances Sam Malekout and Alan James each competed in 6 and 5 events respectively.
Full results here http://www.thepowerof10.info/resultsfiles/2013/81099_12658_27042013213402_SAL270413.xls