Frustration and successes at England champs

Birmingham paid host to the England Athletics senior and U20 championships between 25-27 July, with the event also acting as the trials for the GB team for the Euro U20 champs. A contingent of Woodford athletes were competing with a number of encouraging results for many but frustration for others.

First up in finals action on Friday was Wilfred Williams in the U20 mens triple jump. In a breezy competition he exceeded his PB on 4 occasions when not seeded to qualify, with a best distance of 13.94w (+3.3) to finish in eighth. Louise Gilbert was 7th in the senior 1500m (4:29.18), while advancing out of their first-round heats were U20M Matthew Gittens, with a 100m PB of 10.66, U20W Amira Adeshokan also in the 100m, and Natalie Groves and Kyra White in the women’s 400m. Adrian Richards in the men’s 400m and Marcel Winter in the U20M 100m did not progress from their first-round heats.

The WGEL highlight on Saturday was a bronze medal for Erin Delea in the U20W discus. Erin showed few ill-effects from just arriving back from a holiday in Cambodia and Thailand, taking third with 40.66 in a tightly packed competition with less than 1.5m separating second to seventh. After qualifying for the final of the 400m, Natalie Groves was very unlucky at the start when an errant speaker let out a noise that sounded as though it was as a recall claxon. Several athletes hesitated and Natalie stopped then restarted well adrift of the rest of the field. While officials acknowledged the fault after most of the athletes protested, there was not unanimity among the field for a re-run so Natalie ended 8th, having run 55.47 in her semi-final. Kyra White went out in the semi-final of the event( 56.57), as did Matthew Gittens despite finishing 3rd in his U20M 100m semi final and Amira Adeshokan in the U20W (12.25). There was disappointment among Woodford’s 400m hurdlers Isabelle Kyson (U20W), Molly Swingler (SW) and Will Parry (SM) who did not progress to their finals, though re-joining member Joseph Arnold improved his PB to 58.29 in the U20M event. Aidan O’Driscoll was unable to make an impact in the U20M 3000m steeplechase in his first national championship on the track.

The event also incorporated the England senior para-athletics champs. After competing in the discus on Saturday, T44/F44 athlete Bebe Jackson took silver in the ambulant women’s 100m and bronze in the 200m on Sunday, the latter in a windy time inside her PB, in events in which she is ranked in the top 3 in the world in her category. Also on Sunday 100m hurdlers Jasmine Clark and Yasmine Uwakwe both qualified for the SW final, comfortably through the first round but more narrowly through the semi-finals. Neither ran their fastest in the final, with Jasmine 5th (13.68w after 13.57w in the heat and 13.73 semi) and Yasmin 7th(13.94w after 14.01 and 13.78w). In the SM 110m hurdles Ruben Hedman won his heat (14.20w) but was only 6th in a tight final (14.23) behind a bronze for HCA Ethan Akanni who improved to 14.09 having finished behind Ruben in the heat. Kharina Partridge finished 7th in the U20W triple jump. At 200m Ben Snaith took 5th in the SM event (21.33, after a 21.25w semi). Marcel Winter in the U20M 200m failed to progress but the biggest disappointment of the weekend was for Ethan Franklin, who went into the championship as top ranked U20M at 200m and underlined this class with a very comfortable heat win (21.15) but was disqualified for a false start in his semi-final.