I will begin this week’s review to pick up some great competition away from the local arena.
At Eltham Jody Smith forged to the head of our 60m sprint rankings with a classy 6.93 clocking on 8th Jan. The same day James Osola clocked a very good 7.13 at Carshalton. Over this weekend young Patrick Kyle really hit the high times with two brilliant U20 60m hurdles performances at Lee Valley in the London Games. Patrick in his first ever race at the distance with the higher hurdles clocked first 8.33 secs in his heat and the 8.22 secs in the final despite hitting the third hurdle quite hard. This places Patrick top of our ‘All Time’ rankings for that age group even above that legend Yannick Budd who went on to compete in the Diamond League. Keep it going Patrick.
Cardiff was a very full on meet lasting 8 hours which was an ordeal for Officials and athletes so you need to bear with some performances because of the long-time waiting between events for some people.
The early starting Ladies performed our highest-ranking performances of the day. International Jenna Blundell saw off a classy field as expected with a top 8.44 secs clocking to win the 60m hurdles before later shining in the 60m flat race. Jenna has a PB of 8.21 set last year at this time so we can expect a lot more from her as we move to the Championship part of this indoor season.
In the Pole Vault Ester Leong bettered her own Indoor PB with a superb 3.81m clearance coming into the competition after all of the other competitors had finished. Ester came in at 3.71m with a first-time clearance before taking her PB with another first time shot at 3.81 before fouling out in new ground at 3.91m.
In both the hurdles and Pole Vault our multi-talented find from Gymnastics Mayalee Osola saw both Jenna and Ester win clearly but she put down a marker for future days by showing her great early performances. Mayalee just moving to the U20 age group had to warm up for the hurdles and vault at the same time due to event overlap. As a competent hurdler before moving up to these higher hurdles she coped well clocking 8.97 secs to take sixth place in Jenna’s classy race before moving straight away to the vault. She began tentatively with first time clearances at 2.21m and 2.31, before clearing but dropping on to the bar at 2.41m. At the second attempt she corrected that error and went on to clear 2.51, 2.61 and 2.71 at the first attempt all the time looking more and more confident. 2.81m was too much for her but what a debut at this scary event.
Also early on, Samantha Barrett saw an emergence of early promise in the Triple Jump. Sam has an Indoor PB of 11.07m set back in 2017 and she all but matched that we a great series of jumps finally reaching 11.03m to show that she is back to her best form.
In the Women’s 60m sprint Jenna again showed her class with a 6.73 secs win in her heat of that race. This puts her just below Internationals Emily Diamond and Margaret Critchley and Hannah Williams in our ‘All Time’ Club rankings. However, in the final Jenna was just eclipsed by two others in a below par 7.72s clocking never the less this was a great day for Jenna.
Also in the 60m we saw Higher Comp Member Delleah Belgrave make that final with 7.79 secs in her heat followed by a PB of 7.75 for fifth in the final. Other performances by B&W members were Natalie Isherwood 8.13, U17 Eleanor McIntosh 8.31, Sarah Long 8.33, Disability International Sophie Kamlish 8.62 and Fahmida Ahmed 8.80 secs. Sarah also clocked 27.17 for 200m and Eleanor 27.87 secs.
In the Men’s sprints young Edward Wilson excelled with a PB of 6.97 for fourth in a very close final after qualifying with 7.01 in his heat. Others were Josh Maggs 7.13, Tristan Jamieson 7.47, U17 Mackenzie Ritson 7.51 and Yusef Hussien 7.81. Masters athletes V60 Mark Ellery and V55 James Marshall clocked 8.86 and 9.06 respectively both a little down on their times Indoor last month. Josh Maggs now studying at Bath University showed great form clocking 22.45 to become the second best at 200m on the day. Following up Ryan Brady 23.86, Yusef 24.82, Mark 29.41 and James 30.34 were our other fine performers. Super Vet Callum Collins was our only entrée n the 400m and clocked 67.75 secs just behind B&W old boy from the past Brett Davis.
In the longer races U17 Holly Sanigar ran another very confident 800m matched against Masters athlete Katy Roy. Holly gradually pulled away from Katy with 200m marks of 33 secs, 60.2 and 1:42 before finishing with a big improvement on last month’s time with 2:18.80 secs with Katy following in 2:22.24. Danni Sinclair now studying in Wales clocked 2:27.86 in a later race.
In the Men’s races we saw George Daly clock 2:11.50 for 4th in his race and another super vet V65 Peter Mountain 3:33.60 for fourth in his race and just like Callum he was just behind old time legend Brett Davis.
In the 1500m Luke Burgess finished ninth in his race with 4:16.23 and another of our super Vets V65 David Bedwell finishing in 5:21.11.
In other Field events Ruben Brady putt the Shot to 9.75m and U20 Lilly Bailey equalled her Indoor PB with a leap of 1.66m to win the U20 High Jump and sprinter Tamara Jackson also jumped to a PB to come equal second with 1.41m. That’s High Jump this time and winning the Shot in December. What will sprinter Tammy come up with next time?
You might wonder where you can see the Club Rankings often referred to in my text. Well, if you go into the B&W web site, through ‘Competition’ then open ‘Club Records and Rankings’ and open the first option box you will be able to see all that is on offer. Indoor Rankings are with our Webmaster and should be up in a short time from now.
Mike Strange