A warm and sunny Bedford this weekend was the venue for the National U23 & U20 Championships which this year incorporated the trials for the European Junior Championships to be held in Novi Sad, Serbia between July 23rd and 26th. Conditions were testing for the athletes, particularly on the Sunday afternoon with temperatures reaching 28 degrees and the wind picking up as the day progressed.

Without doubt the outstanding performance of the weekend was that of Laura Wake, who, building on her win in the South of England Championships last weekend, went on to qualify comfortably for the final in her heat on Saturday.  In the final she was drawn in lane 1 and ran a storming race, coming through strongly as the stagger unwound to take the race by nearly a second winning in a new personal best of 54.07. This knocking off over a second from her previous best of last week.  Far more importantly though was the achievement of the UK:Athletics qualifying standard of 54.25s and in winning the trials she should now attract automatic selection according to the selection policy.  This is an outstanding achievement and shows the huge progression that she has recently made.

The other Herts Phoenix champion was Jodie Williams.  Already selected for the World Youth Championships, Jodie, who is now recovered from a recent bout of tonsillitis, cruised through her heat in a personal best of 11.50s and then returned later to take the final in yet another PB of 11.48s – and this into a -1.7m/s headwind!  This shows that she is ready and raring to go for the global championships which start on the 8th July in Italy.

Stephanie Gaynor took the third Herts Phoenix medal of the weekend in the 100mH.  Steph, bronze medallist at these championships last year, was joined iby Claire Humphries and they were drawn in opposite heats.  Here the girls were looking for the European qualifying standard of 13.80s.  Claire went in heat 1 and comfortably secured automatic qualification for the final finishing in 3rd with 14.66s.  Steph went next and also qualified comfortably, in second place, with 14.02s. In the final, with the wind having picked up to -2.0m/s, Steph ran an excellent race to take the Silver medal with 14.00s just behind the winner Lauren Dewdney of Gateshead who recorded 13.90s.  Claire finished in 5th place with 14.75s and was pleased with her first national championships at U20 level.  Steph still has a couple of weeks and the English schools Championships at which to attempt clinch the qualifying time and GB selection.

Peta Lundgren, last weeks Southern Javelin champion could not repeat her excellent form of Watford and threw below her best, just under 40m, to take 5th place.

Likewise, Alec Wing could not better his 400mH PB of last week but still managed a creditable 5th place in the heats with 57.18s – not quite enough to see him into the final.

Joe Gaynor returned 2.01.78 from an 800m heat which went off at breakneck pace and the athletes paid the price in the finishing straight, leaving him short of the final.

In the 400mH Emily Stevens, clearly still not recovered from the cold of last week, ran well but could not qualify from her heat.

Finally Bradley Armorgie was marginally below his seasons best of last week and recorded 1.93m failing narrowly at 1.97m which left him in 14th place in a very high quality U20 men’s high jump competition.

So, a successful championships with another HPX athlete set for GB selection and the chance for others to press their claim before the deadline of 13th June.  Others have also stepped up to this level for the first time and proved that they too can compete with the best and will challenge for honours in the near future.  All in all a good showing by the club.

 

Jon Humphries