British Championships, Lee Valley and Newham open meetings
British Championships, Manchester 4th – 5th September 2020
TVH were represented by 15 athletes at the behind closed doors British Championships at the Sportcity stadium in Manchester on 4th – 5th September, with some great performances considering the lack of preparation and for some it was virtually the start of their season.
Congratulations to Joel Khan (who competes for TVH as a Higher Competition Athlete in the National League) for a fantastic performance in winning the high jump with 2.18m, equalling his outdoor PB in his first competition of the season.
Three TVH athletes competed in the 400m Hurdles with Chris McAlister finishing in 2nd place in 50.54 secs, just outside his season’s best. Chris was unable to compete at the club event in Nuneaton due to illness but is now back racing and also competed in Italy on the 8th Sept. Samuel Clarke who has also been able to find several competitions in recent weeks ran 55.62 secs and Jess Tappin ran 58.64 secs in qualifying and finished 4th in the final in 59.10 secs.
Amelia Strickler has been very consistent in the few warm-up competitions before the championships and finished 2nd in the shot put with a best effort of 17.47m in the 5th round.
Angela Barrett has found it hard to find triple jump warm-up events with just the club event at Nuneaton before the championships but jumped well to finish 3rd with 12.72m. Sam Trigg-Petrovic (who joined TVH as a Higher Competition Athlete in 2018) had his best jump of 15.59m in the last round finishing in 2nd place after Nathan Douglas responded with 15.80m.
In the hammer Pippa Wingate had a consistent series of throws in the last 4 rounds with a best of 61.12m, just 2m less than Pippa’s 2019 PB which was achieved after 3 months of competitions and regular training. In the discus Sophie Mace has also been able to get close to her best from last year with 44.07m at this competition. U20 Emma Howe improved on her performance at the Nuneaton event with 43.99m in the javelin.
Keano-Elliott Paris-Samuel ran his second best 100m time of the season of 10.96 secs (with the time at Nuneaton wind assisted) and was just outside his season’s best in the 200m with 22.04 secs.
In the 1500m Kirsty Fraser had just one BMC warm-up event before the championships but still ran very close to her 2019 PB in both qualifying in 4:19.12 and 4:18.99 in the final.
Although well over the bar in the pole vault Molly Caudery no heighted with the pole knocking the bar down and in the javelin Gavin Johnson-Assoon was unable to perform to his usual standard with the lack of training and competition opportunities.
LICC Open Meeting, Lee Valley, 6th September 2020
8 TVH athletes competed at the final LICC open meeting at Lee Valley for athletes in U17 age group or older. In the 100m U17 Reece Earle running his second event of the season improved to 11.16 secs, moving closer to his PB from last year that topped the U15 national rankings.
We had more athletes competing in the 800m, with U17 Basil Rock running a new PB of 2:04.18, 3.5 secs faster than last year and very close to a Saturday morning time trial a few weeks ago before a holiday and quarantining. Charlotte Buckley (U20) ran 2:16.06 after a few months with no access to a track and Shami Umashankar (U20) ran 2:14.39. Niki Faulkner (coached by Dave Wilkinson with Basil and Shami) improved his 800m season best to 1:57.25.
Samuel Clarke ran 15.46 secs (who competed in the 400m Hurdles at the British Champs and Nuneaton 4 club match) ran 15.46 secs in the 110m Hurdles.
We had two athletes who also competed in the event at Nuneaton competing in the discus, Fergus Imrie 34.79m Laurensa Britane back competing after a long-term injury improved her season best to 37.29m after a long injury and Fergus Imrie threw 34.79m, his best result since an event in February.
In the 100m at the Newham Sprints Meeting at the Community Stadium on the same day Nilrem Stewart had a great competition, running a big PB of 10.98 secs in the first round and improved this further to 10.92 secs in the second round. James Grindle also performed very well with 11.13 secs PB followed by a wind assisted 10.99 secs. V45 athlete Alex Guest made a big improvement on his times from 2019 with 12.71 secs.