Woodford's women get off to a good start
WGEL’s women’s team made a good start to their UKWL season at Lee Valley on Sunday. Like the men, currently competing in the second flight, they too enjoyed fierce winds on Sunday, but thankfully the rain held off. In a very close fixture they finished a very pleasing 2nd with 202 points, just losing out to hosts Enfield & Haringey who scored 204, and ahead of Manchester 199.5, Shaftesbury 185, Notts 175, Crawley 171, Wigan 139 and Glasgow 126. In a fine team effort, performances were led by a high jump double from Moe Sasegbon and Ayamba Akim, a 1500m win for Tara Bird and a win for the 4x100 team.
Photos (by Alex Wardle)
Multi-eventer Moe Sasegbon took the “A” high jump with, in the windy conditions, a good 1.70m World masters champion, Ayamba Akim took the “B” event with 1.65m. Moe also placed a good second in the 100mH with14.82 secs (-1.4) and was 6th in the ‘A” shot with 11.04m. Placing 2nd in the “B” shot was Hollie Redman with 10.66m, having earlier improved her personal best by almost 1m in her specialist event the discus where 46.03m placed 3rd. In that “B” event Myra Perkins was 5th with 26.24m, and in her specialist event the hammer Myra was 2nd with 58.20m Myra will be hoping for Commonwealth Games selection for Scotland in that event where the Scottish qualifying standard has been set at 61m. Rounding up the throws, in the “A” javelin, UKWL debutant Eike Vardja was 7th with 28.98m. The long jump yielded good points, with Kitty Eleyae 2nd in the “A” with 5.79m, and Nusrat Ceesay winning the “B” with 4.99m. Both also raced on the track, with Kitty battling a fierce headwind in the “B” 100m with 13.14 secs (-4.4) for 4th, and Nusrat winning the ‘B” 100mH with 15.39 secs (-4.1). Zainab Ceesay was a good 2nd in the “A” triple jump with 12.41m, and also 2nd was Azaria Francis in the “B” with 11.52m.
Back on the track, Elaine O’Neil placed 2nd over 100m again into a strong headwind with 12.39 secs (-2.9), and over 200m, another debutant Keishana LaRose was 2nd with 25.05 secs (0.4) with Katie Skelding 4th in the “B” with 26.16 secs (-1.8). The 400m saw Jo Ryan a little under par where she was 6th with 61.14 secs, and in the “B” Alicia Roberts-Brown gained valuable points with her 7th in 64.39 secs. Gemma Coe who had performed well for Woodford during the winter in the Met League, made her track debut and placed 4th over 800m with 2m16.47 secs, with Bernadine Pritchett 4th in the ‘B” with 2m28.27 secs. Gemma later raced over 3000m where she placed 3rd with 10m38.15 secs, as Kat Gundersen won the “B” with 11m00.05 secs. Running as a guest in that event Jenny O’Sulliavan recorded 10m45 secs. Bernadine also raced later in the 1500m, where she finished 2nd in the “B” with 5m09.89 secs. This was a race that started at a dawdling pace in the windy conditions, and in which Tara Bird won the “A” comfortably as she took six seconds out of the field over the last 300m to record 4m50.68 secs. For the first time the programme included a 3km s/ch, (previously the s/ch had been raced over 2km) and Rachel Lund performed well finishing 3rd with 12m33.79 secs.
Kitty Eleyae, Keishana Larose, Katie Skelding and Elaine O’Neil combined well to win the 4x100m in 47.93 secs, whilst the 4x400m team of Katie Skelding, Bernadine Pritchett, Tara Bird and Keishana LaRose were 5th with 4m03.48 secs.