BUCS roundup

Among those Woodford athletes competing at the BUCS indoor championships in Sheffield there were medals for Ellen McCartney and Rebecca Matheson and HCA member Calum Henderson.

Ellen McCartney: silver in the pole vault

Ellen McCartney (representing Brunel University) secured her pole vault medal with a second time clearance at 3.80 and went on to do the same at 3.90 and 4.00, but this was only to be a silver thanks to the appearance of British record holder Holly Bradshaw, who won in a championship record of 4.65. In other jumps Denesha Rocastle (Portsmouth) was unable to contest the women’s triple jump final due to injury having qualified in 10.84. HCA member Calum Henderson (Edinburgh) took his first BUCS medal with 6.91 in the men’s long jump for bronze. Our other field finalist was Hugh Williams (UCL) who finished tenth after qualifying with 12.34. Amelia MacDonald (Brunel) just missed out on the high jump final, finishing 13th in 1.55.

New Scottish member Rebecca Matheson (Robert Gordon Uni) started with the 60m on Friday where she went out in the semi-final (7.73) having won her heat. Eloise Lewis (St Mary’s), now a first-claim member, also reached the same stage after a PB of 7.99. Rebecca then looked comfortable taking the opening heat of the 200m on Sunday morning and backed this up with an outright PB of 24.33 to win her semi-final. Rebecca ran strongly in the final to take bronze, again inside her old PB with 24.43. Rhianna Bauku (South Bank) and Millie Finch (Nottingham) competed in the heats of the 200m. Millie had not expected to be racing individually but came in as a replacement after a solid 4x200m relay leg. Kaesi Opara (Cambridge) also ran a strong 4x200 relay leg after he was just unable to overcome problems with his blocks in his 60m heat, where he missed out on qualification by 4 thousandths of a second.