Although fielding a smaller contingent than in recent years, those athletes who attended the England Athletics Open Indoor Championships over the weekend at the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham returned a number of excellent performances including two Bronze medals in the U20 category.  Click here for a link to thefull National Indoor Champs results and click here for the UKA McCain City Challenge results.

With local sprint queen Jodie Williams preferring not to run and concentrate on training for the summer season it was left to others to step up to the mark and ensure the club did not leave empty handed.

Sprint hurdlers Emily Stevens (University of Hertfordshire), Lauren Thompson (Onslow) and Claire Humphries (Sir Frederic Osborn) were up first in the 60m Hurdles with Claire drawn in heat two alongside the Irish Champion Catherine McManus and regular rival from Gateshead, Ashleigh Wood.  She started well and steadily drew away from the field winning comfortably in 8.82s, a personal best with Wood in 2nd place also making the final.  In heat three Emily and Lauren were drawn together alongside the pre-race favourite Sandra Seaton of Bath University.  Seaton led the way with Lauren holding second place until the last hurdle where Emily showed her strength, coming back strongly to take the second qualifying position in 9.15s and leaving Lauren hoping she was one of the fastest losers. Unfortunately Lauren, who recorded 9.19s, just missed out by one place, leaving Emily and Claire starting alongside each other in lanes 6 and 7 in the first final of the day.  Lining up alongside them in the final, from heat one, was 2009 World Youth Heptathlon champion Katarina Thompson from Liverpool and Southern indoor champion Jenny Robinson of Exeter Harriers, both of whom had qualified strongly.

Claire again started well and at the mid point was chasing down leader Seaton with Thompson on her shoulder.  Off the final hurdle Seaton drew away to win with the fastest time in the UK this year, 8.62s, with Thompson pipping Claire to the silver by the narrowest of margins, recording 8.71s to Claire’s 8.72s.  Emily came in seventh with 9.20s and was happy with her day’s work. As a 400m hurdler using the event for speed training she was really pleased she met her target of making the final.  This was a second personal best of the day for Claire who was also delighted. ‘I’ve never done well at the national indoors before and the target was simply to run faster after the relative disappointment of Sheffield, so to improve my PB by a large margin was fantastic and to get a medal was a real bonus – I’m really happy with that’.

The performances of the three girls this winter sees them all ranked within the UK top 10 for the event which is a remarkable achievement.

Natalie Allen (Monks walk) was competing in the U15 60m Hurdles and lined up in her heat alongside county rival Alicia Tymon-McEwan.  Natalie started well and led off the final hurdle before stumbling slightly and allowing Alicia to pass her with them both qualifying for the semi final comfortably.  Natalie’s time of 9.38s was also a new personal best.  In the semi final and drawn alongside the favourite and eventual winner Stephanie Clitheroe, Natalie found herself in a much closer race but again came through strongly to take second place and qualify for the final with yet another improvement on her PB to 9.25s.  The final was a fiercely contested race and won with a blistering 9.06s by Clitheroe.  Natalie fought hard to come in 6th in a time of 9.36s and just miss out on the medals. 

 

Despite her initial disappointment she can be pleased with recording successive PBs and her dramatic improvement in times pushes her up to no. 5 in the national rankings.

Whilst all this excitement was going on on the track, Katie Caulfield, who missed all of 2009 due to injury, was making her return to this level of competition for the first time in over a year.  She started tentatively and recorded no jumps with her first two attempts.  Knowing she had to get a solid effort in next time around to go through for the final three jumps, she sensibly recorded a conservative but confident 5.58m which did the trick.  With her next three efforts she really pushed herself increasing in distance each time and in the final round recorded a superb personal best of 5.96m and leapt in to Bronze medal position.  She then had to watch a number of other athletes complete their series and with Lorraine Ugen from Blackheath & Bromley coming closest with 5.94m, no-one was able to match her best jump so she took a well deserved and very welcome Bronze medal.

 

This was a real achievement and shows that despite suffering great disappointment last year after her superb season in 2008 when she was English Schools champion, Katie is back at her best and will improve further as 2010 unfolds.

Back on the track and 400m hurdler Hannah Lloyd was competing in heat three of the U20 women’s 400m, looking to use the flat race as a gauge of her fitness and winter training and hoping to record a personal best.  Drawn alongside fellow 400m hurdler Laura Burke, Hannah started strongly and went through 200m in exactly the time her coaches had asked of her.  Tracking Burke through 300m she stayed on her shoulder and narrowly failed to pass her on the line finishing in third place in a new personal best time of 58.14s.  This left her 8th fastest, but with only six progressing to the final on the tight indoor track it wasn’t quite good enough to make the final.

However, Hannah was very satisfied to have run so strongly and move into the top 10 in the national rankings. ‘I’m really pleased to come here and achieve my target of running a personal best and this confirms my feeling that training has been going really well’.

On Sunday Gemma Armorgie took part in the U17 women’s High Jump but unfortunately didn’t live up to the high standards she has set herself this winter, failing at 1.59 and not challenging for a medal on this occasion.  However, with a medal at the South of England Championships, jumping a personal best and becoming Essex Champion she can be pleased with her overall progress and look forward to the summer with confidence.

 

 

Although still an U20, Laura Wake chose not to run at these championships but to instead accepted an invitation to run the 400m for London North Lions in the UK:Athletics senior McCain indoor City Challenge series at Lee Valley.  Drawn in heat 2 with Meghan Beesley, an established internationall, Laura ran a perfectly controlled and executed race.  The result showed that she had chosen wisely to run in this meeting as she finished a very close second to Meghan and shaved nearly 3 tenths of a second off her best time in recording a new personal best of 54.57s indicating that her winter training up at Loughborough has also gone very well.

 

Steph. Gaynor was also selected to run for the London North Lions at the City Challenge recording a time of 8.65s, finishing in 5th place just ahead of training partner and rival Serita Solomon.

 

Jon Humphries