5th in home YDL upper - UPDATED

The under-17 and under-20 team finished 5th in the second YDL upper age-group match at Woodford on Saturday 28 May. The rescheduling of the match to Saturday due to Ride London did not help getting out athletes in the U20 age-group in particular, even though the weekend was fixed to minimise exam issues. Winners Crawley led throughout, thanks largely to the dominance of their women’s section, but positions 2 to 5 changed frequently with WGEL second at the half-way stage before fading due to gaps and some athletes being unable to compete in their secondary events. Havering finished second, while Croydon just edged out Tonbridge for third. Tonbridge are second overall in the division having eventually been confirmed as winners of their home fixture, while team ATIP remain are rooted to the foot of the table having finished 6th again.

Details of the men’s results are published here. The top-rated performance of the entire women’s match was Gwen Datey’s 200m PB of 24.35 (into a 1.3m/s wind), following up from a comfortable win in the U20W 100m. Emily Caton ran a significant PB of 5:02.25 for second in the U17W (and overall) 1500m. Jess Adams was another to double, having just missed out on the win in the U20W 1500 in a season’s best of 5:16.91 she came back to finish 4th in the 800m, which enabled U17 Emma Lord to step up and take the U20W B string race. The U17W 800 was a quicker race, with Abigail Reid second in 2:18.90 and Isabella Worwood 2nd B string.

Maia Fisher ran an electronic best of 12.53 (-1.1 m/s) to take fourth in a tough U17W 80m hurdles race behind top ranked Lia Bonsu of Croydon and narrowly missed out on the SP win in 9.44m. Bonsu’s presence also denied Kharina Partridge victory in the triple jump despite a competitive distance of 10.81m. Only two women successfully maxed out their events for the match, with Ashleigh Simmonds 4th in the U17W 100 and 200m events and Benie Massembo third in the B strings as well as taking 5th in the long jump. Benie and Ashleigh then teamed up with Madalena Stefanova and Maia Fisher to take 3rd in the U17W 4x100m in 52.22. Ashleigh then led out the U17W 4x300m relay team, which with Emily Caton, Emma Lord and Abigial Reid took 2nd in 3:03.51. The result leaves WGEL in fifth position in division 1B and with a 3 point gap ahead to fourth. Relegation threatens depending on the definition of the league as to whether or not 2 teams go down (division 1B has currently have 1 fewer team than 1A), but a strong showing at the next fixture at Canterbury on Sunday 26 June could leave everything to play for in the final fixture.