Euro/23 Gold for John and World qualifying mark for Rowden
Yemi Mary John became the first Woodford woman to win a Euro U23 title when she won the 400m in Espoo, Finland, on Friday 15th July. She prevailed in a tight race against Henriette Jaeger of Norway in 51.04, matching the long standing club record set by Sally Gunnell in 1994. A dive over the line by the Norwegian, who broke her national record by over half a second in 51.06, was not enough to draw level with Yemi Mary, while Olympic 800m silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson was well adrift in third. The club has had multiple medallists in previous U23 championships, most recently Cameron Fillery, who won 110m hurdles bronze in 2019, but this was the first individual title for a first-claim Woodford athlete after several near misses, the closest of which was Daniel Rowden missing out by 0.01 in the 800m in 2017.
Yemi Mary went into the final as the fastest qualifier (51.80) and having the fastest PB. She came through late to win in an impressive performance on a track left sodden by a downpour which had caused events to be delayed by an hour. While delighted to win the title to add to her World U20 Championship from last year, Yemi Mary was understandably frustrated to just miss out on the 51.00 set down by UK Athletics to qualify for the individual 400m at the world athletic championships in Hungary.
By contrast Daniel Rowden, who won gold at the UK champs last weekend but without a World Champs qualifying mark , has now guaranteed his selection for the 800m in Budapest by running his second fastest time of 1:44.29 in a low-key meeting in Italy. That time places Daniel top of the UK ranking lists and currently 12th on the world lists this season.
