Good start to BAL Premiership season
Woodford’s men’s team enjoyed a fine start to their BAL Premiership season at Eton on Saturday. The first three teams in this first fixture finished in exactly the same order as they had in the final 2015 match. Woodford were second on 309 points to Birchfield’s 330, and ahead of Newham 290, SBH 281, Sheffield 277, Liverpool 273, Windsor SHE 212 and Sale 201. This was a very solid team performance with only one “A” string win from Joseph Dewar, and one “B” string win for Youcef Zatat, but there were many other good performances led by a personal best and club “domestic” 400mH record for Jack Lawrie.
Results here
Joseph Dewar’s win came in the “A” 100m where he won comfortably from lane 8 in 10.53 secs (+0.8). The “B” race saw a welcome return to BAL competition for Jordan Kirby-Polidore who was 2nd with 10.85 secs (+0.2), and later in his preferred event 200m Jordan was 2nd in that “A” race with 21.19 secs (-0.1 ). The “B” race saw first year U/20 Shayne Dewar 7th with 22.35 secs. Over 400m Woodford debutant Alhagie Salim Drammeh was a good 2nd with 46. 85 secs to World Championship finalist Rabah Yousif . The “B” string saw a fast finishing Alex Bell place 5th with 48.3 secs (ht). Over 800m, junior Dan Rowden took on the pace and although losing out in the end, held on strongly to place 3rd with 1m50.16 secs, and in the “B” string, former 400m man Paul Scanlan made his BAL debut over 800m and placed 5th with 1m56.25 secs. The 1500m saw another Woodford junior, Canaan Solomon take out the pace, and although some athletes came past him in the closing stages he hung on well to take 2nd in the “B” with 3m56.67 secs, as James Stockings placed 6th in the “A” with 3m55.52 secs. In the steeplechase Tomaz Plibersek and Tom Beedell battled it out, with Tom in the end finishing fast and getting the better of Tomaz to place 5th in the “A” with 9m31.28 secs and Tomaz 2nd in the “B” with 9m37.05 secs. The 3000m was a tough event for Woodford, with Gavin Lewis having to drop out with injury the previous evening, Brad Wattleworth was the “A” scorer, 8th in 8m53.51 secs, and Ryan McKinlay, far from race-fit, gamely stepped in at short notice and placed 7th with 9m26.00 secs. Ryan’s great club spirit had been in evidence earlier when he cleared a height in the Pole Vault and, with others no-heighting, his 2.20m proved a valuable 5th in the “B” as Dan Gardner in his first competition of the year was 6th in the “A” with 4.40m.
Jack Lawrie’s “domestic” Club record came in the 400mH where he had a fine run. Jack was 4th in last season’s European Junior Championships, and had a 2015 season’s best of 51.52 secs, but in his first race of 2016 significantly improved that as he finished very strongly and placed a close 3rd with 50.85 secs, to take the club record from fellow Scot Francis Smith. The “B” 400m H saw a good run from Ewan Dyer who was 2nd from the outside lane with 52.99 secs and, in the 110mH, Jack was back in action where he was 5th in the “A” with 14.87 secs (+1.6) with Francis Smith 4th in the “B” with 16.19 secs, having hit the last hurdle as he appeared to be moving into the lead.
Woodford’s good team effort continued in the field, and in the early events there was a good start, as Andy Frost placed 3rd in the hammer with 66.25m and last minute sub Fergus Harford placed 5th in the ‘B” with 33.63m. The long jump saw two Woodford debutants, Anton Dixon just get the better of Colm Burk, with Anton placing 5th in the “A” with 7.10m (+0.2) and Colm 3rd in the “B” with 6.97m (-0.9). The triple jump saw Thalosang Tshireletso place 3rd in the “A” with 15.35m (+1.4) and Peter Kirabo also 3rd, in the ‘B”, with 13.79m (+0.4). Sadly the high jump was delayed for over an hour shortly after the competition had begun due to an injury to one of the athletes. When it re-started Robert Wolski ended up with a 2.05m clearance for 5th and Jack Lochan’s 2.00m was 2nd in the “B”. In the other throws it was pleasing to see former British No 1 Emeka Udechuku back in BAL action and he placed 3rd in the discus with 53.75m and Chris Linque was 3rd in the “B” with 47.12m. In the javelin Simon Bennett competed and gained valuable points despite struggling with an elbow injury placing 6th with 54.20m, whilst in the "B" James Bongart was 5th with 47,76m.The shot was a good standard as always in the BAL, and on this occasion Anthony Oshodi just got the better of Youcef Zatat as they scored good team points. Anthony threw a season’s best of 17.05m for 3rd in the “A” with Youcef’s 17.02m winning the “B”.
The 4x100m saw Woodford without its full squad of sprinters, but Alex Bell and Thalosang Tshireletso nevertheless combined well with Justin Duru and Joseph Dewar to place a close 2nd in 41.75 secs. The 4x400 team of Jack LawrieJ(49.8 ), Dan Rowden (51.3), Canaan Solomon (48.2) and Alex Bell (47.9) placed 5th with 3m17.05 secs, but would have been significantly better placed but for an incident on the first change where outgoing runner Dan Rowden had the baton knocked from his hand, which he then had to stop and retrieve.
Altogether a very satisfying team performance in this first fixture and Team Manager Gladys Bird will he hoping to get a strong team out for the 2nd fixture in Manchester in four weeks to maintain the momentum.