Essex & Eastern Indoor Champs - Seniors
An unusually late Essex and Eastern Indoor championships took place over the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of March at Lee Valley. A small number of senior Woodford athletes competed (in complement to the large number of youth and juniors who turned out.)
Day one saw the short events take centre stage. On the track, Qi Wei finished third in his 60m heat with a time of 7.51s to progress to the final. Qi went on to finish 7th in the final with a time of 7.40s.
In the field, Kitty Eleyae produced the first medal and win for Woodford, taking both the Essex and Eastern women's long jump titles with a best jump of 5.20m (SB.)
Not long after, she was joined in the Champion's Circle by Aaron Edwards. In an unusually strong field, Aaron retained his Essex title with a SB throw of 13.15m, also taking the Eastern silver medal. Hugh Williams joined Aaron on the podium, taking silver in the Essex competition and bronze in the Eastern competition with a SB throw of 12.22m.
Day two of the competition was focused on longer distance events.
In the women's 200m, Woodford was represented by Lakhesia Adams Poku and Levania Ugonna-Mba. Levania was 3rd in her heat, with a time of 27.58s - which was unfortunately not fast enough to advance to the finals. Lakhesia won her heat in 25.97s (a SB performance) and advanced to the finals where she won gold in the Essex competition and silver in the Eastern in a time of 25.98s. Qi Wei returned for more action on day two and ran in the men's 200m, finishing his heat in a time of 24.42s for 3rd.
In the women's 400m, Kyra White won the Essex title (and took silver in the Eastern competition) with a time of 57.16s. Continuing up the distance trend, Woodford saw an outright win in the women's 800m for Aoibheann Pearce - who stormed home in 2 minutes 21.64 seconds to comfortably take the title. This was a PB for Aoibheann and saw her pick up both gold medals.
At the end of the weekend, Woodford picked up four Essex titles, two Eastern titles and an extra four medals across the two competitions. With the indoor season now wrapped up, athletes turn their attention to the outdoors - with the Essex Outdoor Championships scheduled for the weekend of the 11th and 12th of May at Chelmsford."