Challenges at SAL 2

Woodford found their first away match in the top division of the SAL much harder than the victorious home fixture at the start of the season. The team finished fifth of the six teams on Sunday 21st June, with only Havering behind them, a parried team over whom WGEL do not score for the rest of the season after having beaten them convincingly at Woodford. Hosts Windsor, Slough, Eton and Hounslow took full advantage of the match being at Eton with a strong team across the board, including several who preferred this match to competing in the national champs in Birmingham on the same weekend. WSEH pulled away early on and won by over 100 points, ahead of Brighton & Hove, Blackheath & Bromley and Harrow who ended tightly packed just ahead of WGEL. While gaps proved expensive in this mid-field battle, Woodford only had 3 A string winners all day, compared to 19 against different clubs in the home match leaving limited scope for acting team manager Salvatore Passerini to boost the team’s result.

The first WGEL win of the day came in the men’s 100m, by Merveilles Massembo in 10.83. Merveilles subsequently improved his 200m PB to 21.95 in coming second as the heat of the day really started to bite. John Mayingi ran has fastest 100m for several years (11.18) for third in a tight B race. The higher average standard was highlighted by M40 Adrian Richards running faster than his winning time at 400m in match one but only finishing fourth. Our female sprinters were competitive, eg U18 Evanna Eze was third in the 100 with Lakhesia Adams-Poku second in the B. Non-scorer Jessie Briggs improved her 100m best and Evanna just missed out on her best in the 200 where she ran faster than the WGEL scorers (25.45). Kyra White was second in the 400m, with Daisy Anderson taking the B string which didn’t have the depth of the other sprints. U18W Daisy had been the first Woodford athlete on track, in the 400 hurdles, followed shortly after by Will Parry in the men’s event where he was runner-up in a season’s best of 55.72. Will and his B string Henry Akaluka also combined for good points in the 110 hurdles where both were runners-up. Unfortunately, in the women’s sprint hurdles Rebecca Wright suffered a heavy fall.

The heat was a particular factor in the distance events, with the decision taken to cut the longest race for women from 5000m to 3000m. Naomi Doyle ran a slight PB in this race despite already having helped cover the 800m along with Katie Olert, who together with U18M Samuel Singh ran the middle distance double. Until late on, the highest Woodford finisher in the distances was Angus Holford, second in the men’s 3000m, but Aidan O’Driscoll won the men’s 2000m steeplechase in the last individual race of the day.

The women’s field was the area where Woodford numbers were most stretched, though athletes including Kirsty Bateman-Foley and Habiba Tijani helped limit the gaps. Kirsty was the highest scoring individual woman of the day, though the majority of her points came from her B string javelin win rather than covering events including hammer. Kike Agoro in her first SAL for Woodford very narrowly won the A javelin in a season’s best of 43.44. There were similarly strong points in the men’s javelin with Henry Bennet second in the A with a PB of 52.92 allowing Milan Andrews to take the B string. There were double second places in the discus for Chris Linque and Hugh Williams, who was the top male individual points scorer across his four events. In the pole vaults there was misfortune for Will Snashall with a pole snap relatively early on while Alice Bird ended up with an outdoor best of 3.35 in a tight women’s vault. U18M Joshua Alowooja was close to his best in his first competition for WGEL in the long jump (6.33), backed up by Wilfred Williams who took second in the B plus 3rd in the triple jump.

Into the relays Woodford’s women’s 4x100m took a solid second behind a dominant home quartet. The men’s team were notably closer to WSEH to also finish runners-up. While the squad only had enough to get a single mixed 4x400 quartet they went into the race reasonably confident. They hadn’t allowed for WSEH bringing in further reinforcements who had already competed in the UK champs the previous day, in addition to those who had opted to miss the Birmingham event. While Thomas Niewczasinki-Kirkland held the lead after a strong first leg, the hosts streaked away with men on legs 2 and 3 leaving Evie Mosanya and Lakhesia Adams Poku in their wake. WSEH won by a wide margin to beat the division one mixed 4x400 record (3:31.64) but Adrian Richards carried the Woodford quartet almost as far ahead of a tight battle for third. The overall result moves WGEL from second in the 18-team division after the initial win into mid-division. A stronger result in the third match, at Little Marlow on Sunday 19 July, will be needed to ensure the team doesn’t slip towards the relegation zone.