TVH Holds NAL Lead, and Medals for Joel Houslin and Molly Caudery at Champs
It has been a busy few weeks for TVH. We have already organised National Athletics League and Youth Development League fixtures and three open graded meetings with the British Milers Club.
The National Athletics League (NAL) fixture on 3rd July saw TVH win comfortably in the Premiership London South division against Blackheath & Bromley, Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow and Southampton, and consolidate top position in the Premiership table after the second of four fixtures.
Highlights of many great performances on the day included an 18.11m PB for Amelia Strickler in the shot put and other great throws performances; wins in the hammer A & B string for Pippa Wingate, Katie Lambert, Jack Paget and Sam Mace and another comfortable win in the javelin for Gavin Johnson Assoon.
Molly Caudery won the pole vault with 4.20m and then headed to Estonia for the European U23 Championships jumping a season’s best 4.45m on 11th July to win the silver medal and then 2 days later jumped 4.51m at the British Grand Prix in Gateshead, just 2cm below her 2018 PB.
There were some big (although wind assisted) jumps for TVH athletes; Sam Trigg-Petrovic 15.43m, Joel Bright-Davies 14.33m and Montana Jackson 12.86m in the triple jump and Jude Bright-Davies 7.05m in the long jump.
On the track there were impressive runs in the sprints and hurdles by Rachel Miller, Zoey Clark, Linnea Killander, Jess Tappin, Nicole Kendall and Angelita Broadbelt-Blake, the difficult 800m / 1500m double for Charlotte Buckley and Alex Mundell and a win in the 3000m for Kosana Weir.
Muhammad Kounta, Keano-Elliott Paris-Samuel, Luke Lennon-Ford and Jason Hoyle scored maximum points in the 200m and 400m.
Enormous thanks to team managers Manuel da Silva and Phil Wetton and all the volunteers who helped John organise the meeting especially Marion & Dave Huffer, Geoff Hawes and Barrie Saunders.
English Schools Championships
The English Schools Championships has been a lot different this year, both in selecting the competitors and the actual event that took place in Manchester from 9th to 11th July with a separate day for each age group. Several TVH young athletes made the trip, congratulations to Joel Houslin who won the intermediate boys (U17) 200m in a new PB of 21.90 secs and Noor-Eldin Mahmoud who finished 3rd in the high jump with 1.94m in the same age group with Jamaal Darlington in 5th with a new PB of 1.91m. Ruth-Ann Otaruoh finished 4th in the senior girls triple jump. All of the TVH athletes who competed at the event acquitted themselves well – Basil Rock, Max Bishop, Maddie Casey, Neon Richards, James Grindle and Reece Earle. Reece had not fully recovered from an injury and we look forward to him getting back to performing to his best later in the season.
In the Southern Athletics League (SAL) TVH athletes are competing against Harrow, Ealing, Hillingdon, Highgate and Serpentine in a local league this year. It is a very close competition with Harrow this year (TVH and Harrow are first and second in the National Athletics League) with TVH narrowly winning the first fixture and Harrow narrowly winning the second fixture. Many of our athletes have now been competing regularly in the NAL, SAL, YDL (Youth Development League) and Veterans League.
The second fixture at Hillingdon on 11th July included a new U20 400m Hurdles club record for Charlotte Buckley (the latest of many new records this season to be highlighted in a future update) and great performances from athletes who had returned from competing at the English Schools earlier that weekend – Maddie Casey, Neon Richards and Joel Houslin with the last leg of the sprint relay. Under 17 athletes who competed for the SAL team for the first time all performed well, Veronica Filobokova setting 3 PBs, Charlotte Edge winning her second ever steeplechase, Olivia Sparks running her first 400m and Juliet Parson finished 3rd in the women’s 1500m one week before her 15th birthday. The performance of the day in the men’s competition came in the javelin from Gavin Johnson Assoon. Gavin had been getting close to 70m again this season and achieved it again with a throw of 70.35m just 18cm short of his 2019 PB.
Full results will appear on the SAL website
TVH & BMC Open Meetings
The third in our series of four open meetings took place on Weds 7th July with the final meeting on Sunday 22nd August. As well as the BMC (British Milers Club) middle distance events organised by Dave Wilkinson, the meetings have enabled athletes from TVH and local clubs athletes to have good early season competition across a range of events, with track results posted live online.
Highlights of these meetings so far have included an amazing finish by Basil Rock and Max Bishop in an 800m race at the 12th May meeting and an U15 Boys 3000m club record of 9:31.74 by Cameron McConnon, beating the previous record set by Tsegay Berhre in 1995 with Manuel da Silva running in both of those races 26 years apart.
The last of the TVH Summer Open Meetings will take place on Sunday, 22 August.