2nd place in NAL Premiership Round Two at Woodford

The second round of the NAL Premiership was held at Woodford on Saturday. After the cancellation of the last few events at the first round at Eton due to gales and torrential rain there were concerns with the predicted weather that a similar fate could befall our home fixture. In the end the expected rain held off although the winds with gusts of up 50 mph arrived as expected. In the end only one event was cancelled, the women's pole vault due to safety concerns, as the wind strengthened during the afternoon. The winds were following for the sprinters as others had to battle into it on the back straight. It also made all the jumping and the discus and javelin events tricky. As a team Woodford performed well, placing 2^nd on the day to Blackheath and ahead of Glasgow, SBH, Sale, Birchfield, Swansea and Newham. Performances were led be double men’s wins in the 1500m (Phil Norman and Jaymee Domoney) and javelin (Max Law and Bradley James) and additional “A” string wins for Jack Lawrie, Jacob Campbell and Tosin Oke. For the women there was a double win in the triple jump (Georgie Forde-Wells and Mary Elcock) and an “A” string win for Jane Davidson in the 100mH. There were also wins for the women's 4x100m team and the men's 4x400m team.

Results

Photos (by Alex Wardle)

The meeting got under way with the women’s hammer and, in a good quality competition won by NEB's Katie Head with over 67m, Lucy Marshall placed 5^th in the “A” with a season’s best of 57.13m, which was  a new British Masters W40 best. Just behind Lucy was Danielle Broom who was 2^nd in the “B” with 56.04m. Lucy and Danielle both covered the shot, with Lucy recording 10.88m for 6^th in the “A” and Danielle 4^th in the “B” with 9.56m. Danielle was especially busy as she also placed 4^th in the “B” javelin with 22.17m and competed as a guest in the discus. Ahead of Danielle in the javelin was Kirsty Bateman-Foley who threw well in the wind to place 2^nd with 38.06m. Scoring in the discus and fresh from a recent significant p.b. of 50.88m was Emma Botham who placed 5^thwith 44.46m and Precious Hamilton who won the “B” with 40.99m.

In the men’s throwing events the javelin scored best with debutant Max Law  taking the “A” string win with 62.26m and Bradley James the “B” with 46.62m. Good performances from each in the difficult wind conditions. The discus saw Chris Linque throw 38.68m for 8^th in the “A” and Hugh Williams 33.36m for 6^th in the “B”. The hammer saw another debutant, U/20 Noah Wooding, place 7^th with 39.27m and stalwart Fergus Harford 6^th in the “B” with 27.60m. In the shot Aaron Edwards, also making his Woodford debut, was 4^th in the “B” with 12.37m and decathlete Howard Bell  7^th in the “A” with 12.95m. Howard had a busy day having earlier placed 4^th in the “A”  Pole Vault with 4.41m, where U/20 Cameron Wells recorded a significant p.b. also with 4.41m to win the “B”, both were very good performances given the extremely windy conditions. Howard also gained useful points in both the long and high jumps, his 6.53m w(+4.7)in the former placed 6^th in the “A” and his 1.81m in the latter was 2^nd in the “B”. In the “B” long jump another debutant, Joseph Dowling-East, was 3rd with 6.08m w (+4.2)and in the “A”  high jump Joba Ashiru recorded 1.86m for 6^th. The wind was very difficult for all the jumpers. The triple jump saw former Commonwealth Games Champion and London 2012 Olympics 7^thplacer Tosin Oke record a very creditable 15.94m w (+4.8) off a short approach. Sprinter Merveilles Massembo showed he has significant talent in this occasional event for him as he placed 2^nd in the “B” with 13.08mw (+3.7) achieved from some way behind the take-off board.

In the women’s high jump Jess Gordan cleared 1.56m for 4^th= with Amelia Watling, an U/20, clearing 1.51m for 6^th in the “B”. Amelia was also in the long jump where her 5.51m (+3.5) w placed 5^th, with Kitty Eleyae recovering from injury and off a short approach recording 5.14m  w (+4.0) for 4^th in the “B”. The triple jump saw both the UK outdoor and indoor champions in action for Woodford. Making her debut, Georgie Forde-Wellslast weekend’s UK Champion in Manchester, won the “A” with 13.28m w (+2.3), with indoor champion Mary Elcock winning the “B” with 12.21m w (+3.3).

The track events were all affected by the huge winds. They got under way with the men’s 400mH  with Jack Lawrie winning the “A” in 52.33 secs but it was clearly noticeable just how strong the wind was on the second half of the first bend and along the back straight. Adam Kirk-Smith gained useful 4^th place “B” string points with 61.68 secs. Adam later ran in his specialist event, the 3km s/ch, where he placed 2^nd with 9m28.33 secs. Adam had been unwell during the week so performed admirably in both events given that context. Ryan McKinlay took maximum “B” string points with his 10m57.15 secs. In the 110mH athletes had a brief respite from the extreme winds and George Vaughan placed 5^th with 14.54 secs (+1.7) whilst in the “B” the wind again picked up a bit as Jack Lawrie placed 2^nd with 14.27 secs (+3.6). The sprinters had hugely favourable winds. Matthew Adum-Yeboah was 8^th in the “A” 100m with 10.61 secs w (+7.4) with Merveilles Massembo 6^th in the “B” with 10.85 secs (+3.2). In the 200m, Nabil Tezkratt was 5^th in the “A” with 20.97 secs w (+4.6) and in the “B” Matthew Adum-Yeboah was 7^th with 21.79 secs w (+5.6). In the 400m Jacob Campbell performed admirably in the conditions to win in 47.94 secs as Adrian Richards placed 3^rd with 50.59 secs. For Jacob it was his 3rd fastest time ever and for Adrian also one of his fastest ever, showing how well both athletes paced their races for the conditions.

The women’s sprints were similarly windy. In the “A” 100m Gwen Datey placed 4^th with 11.90 w secs (+4.6) and Rebecca Matheson won the “B” with 11.78 secs w (+5.6). Rebecca covered the “A” 200m where she was 4^th with 24.18 secs w (+3.1) and Gwen won the “B” with 24.12 secs w (+4.3). Over 400m Leah Keisler, in her 2^nd race of the day, finished strongly to place 4^th with 57.83 secs with Jasmine Mitchell, also in her 2^nd race, running very strongly to take the “B” with 58.12 secs. Leah’s prior race had been over 800m where she placed 2^nd with 2m11.91 secs whilst Jasmine’s was over 400mH, placing 6^th with 64.37 secs. Backing up Leah over 800m was U/20 Kezia Beeton who was 3^rd in the “B” with 2m20.35 secs, whilst in the “B” 400mH Rhianna Buaku was also 3^rd with 68.56 secs. In the 100mH Jane Davidson dominated a good field as she won by a clear 0.2 secs recording 13.60 secs w (+3.0) and in the “B” Grace Brennan was 5^thwith 16.27 secs (+1.8.) The other Woodford women athletes in track action were Louise Gilbert who had led for some distance in the wind over 1500m but eventually finished 3^rd with 4m36.56m and Aoibheann Pearce in the 2000m s/ch where she was 4^th with 8m26.42 secs.

The men’s middle-distance events were tactical affairs in the conditions. U/20 Jimmy Geller, who has been in fine form recently, was elevated to “A” string in the 800m, performing well against good opposition to place 6^thwith 1m55.26 secs. In the “B” debutant Jaymee Domoney ran a fine tactical race to take the win with 1m55.03 scs. Jaymee was later in action in the 1500m, a race where the first two laps were jogged and still slow until Woodford’s Olympic steeplechaser and European Championship finalist Phil Norman took the lead with 500m left, running strongly to win in 4m05.41 secs. Jaymee again performed well to take the “B” win with 4m07.92 secs. The 5000m athletes had to battle the back straight winds for longer than others and the Woodford athletes performed well, Angus Holford getting the better of debutant Tom Rehal to record 15m41.54 secs for 5^th “A” with Tom 3^rd  in the “B” with 15m51.20 secs.

In the sprint relays both the men and women performed well. The women (Shona Vincent, Gwen Datey, Lakhesia Adams-Poku and Rebecca Matheson)  took an outstanding victory in 46.56 secs, the second fastest time by a Club team in the UK this season. The men (Sikuru Onibanjo, Kaidon Chambers, Mathew Adum-Yeboah and Merveilles Massembo) were a creditable 5^th with 42.37 secs. The women’s 4x400m team of Jasmine Mitchell 61.0 secs, Louise Gilbert 61.7 secs, Leah Keisler 57.0 secs and Rhianna Buaku 61.1 secs were 6^th with 4m00.74 and, but for a couple of less than perfect changeovers,  might have been a couple of places further up. The men’s 4x400m closed out the meeting with a fine victory as Jacob Campbell 50.9 secs, Adrian Richards, 50.3 secs, Phil Norman 50.6 secs combined to hand a slight lead to Jack Lawrie (47.8 secs) as he ensured the win in a close finish.

Whilst the overall results remain provisional both for this and the other Premiership fixture it seems Woodford are 3^rd across the 16 teams albeit on match point countback from both WSEH and Blackheath. The final fixture will be in Glasgow on August 5^th.