Personal Bests for Nabil Tezkratt and Emma Botham at 2nd NAL fixture

This Sunday saw the second round of this season’s “hybrid” structure NAL competition held at the Stonex (Barnet Copthall) Stadium in Hendon. The stadium is currently under-going significant construction activity for Saracens Rugby Club making it very difficult for athletes and officials to move around the stadium as they would normally. At least, with the exception of a short but heavy mid-afternoon shower the weather stayed finer than expected except that there were strong headwinds in the home straight against the athletes. Woodford had finished third in this London North sub-division of the NAL Premiership in the first meeting and were sixth nationally of the 16 Clubs in that Premiership division. Woodford’s team again consisted of a mix of seasoned BAL/UKWL athletes complemented by many much younger who had never competed at this level prior to the BAL/UKWL being merged into the new NAL which had been due to commence in 2020. At the time of publishing the results available and displayed on the NAL website still contain many inaccuracies both in terms of individual performances and team scores and positions. This article will be updated when the final version of the results is available. The windy conditions were not necessarily conducive to performances of the highest level, but two Woodford athletes did record personal bests, debutant Emma Botham in the women’s discus and Under 20 Nabil Tezkratt in the men’s 400m.

Emma Botham in her first competition for Woodford Green started the day with a discus personal best of 42.87m set just a month ago but managed to improve that significantly as she threw 46.64m, placing 4th in a very good standard discus competition. Precious Hamilton, an U/20 whose own personal best of 46.23m was also set recently at Bedford, on this occasion had to be content with a modest 36.30m for 2nd in the “B” after no throws in each of the first two rounds. Emma also placed 2nd in the “B”  shot with 9.72m as hammer specialist Lucy Marshall was 2nd in the “A” with 11.29m. Lucy was also second in the hammer with 57.03m and 3rd in the “B” javelin with 21.68m. In the “B” hammer another and one of several more U/20’s, Simbi Sikiru was 2nd with 46.58m. All of the sprint races were of a good standard and into stiff headwinds. Shona Vincent, an U/17, placed 3rd in the 100m with 12.24 secs and U/20 Gwen Datey was also 3rd in the “B” with 12.62 secs. Gwen was later 4th in the “A” 200m with (time to be confirmed) and U/20 Kyra Boyce 2nd in the “B” with 26.05 secs (-2.5). Over 400m another debutant, Nayanna Dubarry-Gay, found 56.80 secs only good enough for 4th in a good standard “A” race, but Jasmine MItchell won the “B” with 58.83 secs after she had already won the 400mH with 65.29 secs. The sprint hurdles saw Jane Davidson 3rd with 15.30 secs (-0.6) having already placed 2nd in the “B” high jump and 4th in the “A” javelin. Anna Clark led the women’s middle distance results with a strong win from the front in 2m13.98 secs as Louise Gilbert took the “B” with 2m17.38 secs  Over 1500m Alicia McCardell was 2nd with 5m06.09 and over 3000m Jessica Adams and Lily Yates (both U/20’s and debutants ) placed 3rd in the “A” and first in the “B” with 11m28.54 secs and 11min35.93 secs respectively. Multi-eventer Amelia MacDonald was 2nd in the long jump with 5.31m w (+2.4) and Denesha Rocastle  was also 2nd in the “B”  with 4.92m (-1.2). Denesha was later in action in her main event the triple jump where her 11.27m (-1,7) placed 2nd. Larisa Anipa was also 2nd in the “B” with 8.31m. In the Pole Vault Ellen McCartney coped well with the swirling winds with a clearance at 4.10m before she heads off to compete in the European U/23 Championships next week.

Both women’s relay teams performed well. The 4x100 squad of Gwen Datey, Shona Vincent, Eloise Lewis and Jane Davidson were 2nd with 48.74 secs while the 4x400m team of Yemi Mary John (54.9 secs), Jasmine Mitchell (60.9 secs), Kyra Boyce (59.4 secs) and Nayanna Dubarry-Gay (56.8 secs) led from start to finish to record a comfortable win with 3m51.88 secs.

Amongst the men’s performances, that of another U/20, Nabil Tezkratt, perhaps stood out. In his first season over 400m Nabil had run well in the first NAL recording a PB of 48.16 secs, and in this occasion went better as he won the “A” race running a well-controlled race along the back straight to finish strongly into the wind recording another PB of 47.86 secs to currently rank him 7th U/20 in the U.K. Declan Gall ran in the “B” where his 51.53 secs was 4th scorer, but that was after having earlier placed 2nd in the “B” 400mH with 54.47 secs. Jack Lawrie had his first race of the season and struggled with the wind a little as his 54.70 was 3rd  in the “A”. George Vaughan, a non-scorer on this occasion, ended up being the fastest with his 54.19 secs. In the 110mH Ollie Cresswell was another making his debut and into a strong headwind his 14.97 secs placed 2nd. Ryan McKinlay, great clubman that he is, stood in at the last minute to cover for an injured athlete and his 23.10 secs gained points just a few minutes after he had finished 2nd in the 3000m s/ch with 10m41.46 secs. Earlier Ryan had cleared a height in the pole vault as had ex international decathlete Paul Howard. Over 800m the ever consistent Ewan Dyer lost out for 2nd by 0.01 secs in a close race where he recorded 1m52.28 secs. Ed Shepherd, more at home over longer distances, covered the “B” and was 3rd with 2m 00.56 secs and also 4th in the 1500m later. In that “A” race Ahmed Abdulle placed 4th with 4m01.39 secs. Although not fast in the windy conditions the 5000m was a decent race with James Stockings’ 15m33.71 secs placing 4th in the “A” and Angus Holford’s 15m42.56 secs 2nd in the ‘B”.

Leading Woodford’s efforts in the jumps was Lawrence Davis, back in action for the first time since 2019. He placed 2nd in the long jump with 6.87m (+0.7) and then won his speciality, the Triple Jump, off a short approach and recorded 15.37m. U/20 Joba Ashiru stood in at short notice in the “B”, which he won with his only attempt of 12.32m before concentrating on the high jump where he again equalled his personal best with 1.95m and would likely have gone higher but for the on-set of the heavy rain shower. Curtis Wood, also on his debut, was 3rd in that “B” high jump with 1.85 having, also at short notice covered in the “B” long jump with 6.15m, also for 3rd. The Hammer saw Ciaran Wright place 2nd with 63.12m as his coach, the former UK number one, Andy Frost was also 2nd in the “B” with 55.83m. Ciaran also covered the “B” shot where his 12.83m was 3rd and, on his debut, Craig Charlton placed 2nd in the “A” with 15.45m. Craig had earlier covered the “B” discus with his 34.19m for 2nd in the “B” , and decathlete Howard Bell, 4th in the “A” with a PB of 37.03m. In the javelin Howard was close to his best with 49.33m, also for 4th, and Lee Lovelock-Jemmott was 2nd in the “B” with 42.39 m. Missing other specialists, two younger athletes covered the sprints and acquitted themselves well into the headwinds. Winfred Hakeem recorded 11.49 secs (-1.0) over 100m and 23.66 secs (-0.1) over 200m and U/20 Medwin Odamitten 11.43 ses and 23.53 secs (-1.8).

Both relay teams placed 3rd, the 4x100m squad of Ollie Cresswell, Medwin Odamitten, Winfred Hakeem and Adrian Richards recording 43.73 secs, and Jack Lawrie, Ewan Dyer, Adrian Richards and Nabil Tezkratt 3m 25.06 secs.

 The 3rd of these NAL fixtures will take place at Woodford on Sunday August 8th