Hurdlers Stephanie Gaynor (U23) and Claire Humphries (U20) and the Wake siblings Laura and Nathan (U20) all took their place amongst the top athletes from the UK and abroad who were hoping to qualify for the GB team for the World Indoor Championships in Doha next Month.

Additionally the sprinters were all competing for the first time under the new IAAF ‘False Start’ rule which now says that any athlete making any false start will be immediately disqualified – no second chances.

On Saturday Richard Hale A level student Nathan Wake, a gold medallist from last summer’s European Junior Championships 4x400m relay team, lined up in the less familiar 800m.  This would serve as good endurance training and he ran close to his Personal Best in recording 1.52.56s and took 4th place qualifying for the ‘B’ final on Sunday.  The next day he ran a similar race with a strong finish to record 1.53.20 taking an excellent 2nd place.

His sister Laura, now a student at Loughborough, took to the track on Saturday in the 400m and ran a controlled race to finish 3rd in 54.85s – close to her PB, and qualify for the final on Sunday.  In that final she finished 4th in 55.04s and was pleased with her weekend’s work.  She remains at the top of the national U20 rankings with those performances.

Brunel student Steph Gaynor and Claire Humphries, currently studying for her A levels at Sir Frederick Osborn, were in with athletes of the quality of former World Champion and world record holder Derval O’Rourke of Ireland and defending champion Gemma Bennett from London and were looking to run fast times as a result. Unfortunately for Claire she was hampered by a tight hamstring in her warm up.  However, running in heat 2 and drawn next to GB Olympic Heptathlete Louise Hazel, Claire started well and ended up 5th, equalling her season’s best time of 8.91s.  Although disappointed not to have run faster Claire said ‘I enjoyed the experience of a big meeting and competing under the new IAAF False Start rule was interesting but I hope to run faster soon if the hamstring calms down.’

Steph. was drawn in Heat 4 along with Zara Hohn who has been running very fast this season and won the heat, but was ultimately to become the only hurdles victim of the new false start rule in the final. Steph also ran a strong race to finish second in 8.64s  but was disappointed that this was not quite good enough to make the ‘A’ final. This did, however, put her at the top of the rankings in the ‘B’ Final which she duly dominated and won with a faster time of 8.56s, close to her PB of 8.52s.

This was a good opportunity for all these athletes to race against the top athletes in the UK and beyond and each gave a good account of themselves.  No doubt this will stand them all in good stead for the future.

Jon Humphries