TVH lead National Athletics League Premiership after wins in Manchester and Nottingham
A comprehensive win in Nottingham in our second National Athletics League fixture on Saturday 15th July leaves TVH in a strong position leading going in to our final fixture in Glasgow on Saturday 5th August. This season the National Athletics League Premiership involves the top 16 senior UK track & field clubs competing in 3 ‘round robin’ rounds of two fixtures.
The first round of fixtures on Sunday 11th June were badly hit by thunderstorms with just 22 of 38 events completed in Manchester before the meeting was abandoned with TVH in the lead. Further south the other fixture at Eton lasted slightly longer with 26 events possible before being abandoned with Harrow in the lead. The league decided to even up the number of events for the league table by sharing the points for 4 events evenly between the 8 clubs at Manchester, all of which left Harrow and TVH with 8 league points and Harrow ahead on match points after the first round of fixtures.
The weather forecast again looked bad in Nottingham for the second round of fixtures on 15th July where TVH and Harrow both competed and with the blustery conditions the Pole Vault was moved indoors. Fortunately there was only a heavy shower after the Women’s Hammer (the first field event) and before the track events started and another brief heavy shower later in the day.
Nottingham 15th July – TVH took maximum points with A and B string wins in the first three events of the day and never looked back; Kayleigh Presswell and Pippa Wingate in the Hammer, Chris McAlister, Samuel Clarke, Jess Tappin and Nicole Kendall in the 400m Hurdles. The final points score (after all 38 events this time!) was TVH 638 in first, Harrow 592.5 in second with Windsor in third on 423.
There were six events in total with maximum points A and B string wins, the other three were; Women’s Pole Vault Nemiah Munir and Clare Maurer, Women’s 1500m Kate Olding and Alex Mundell and Men’s High Jump Joel Clarke-Khan and Toni Ademuwagun.
There were also A string wins for Daniel Offiah and Bianca Williams in the 100m (Bianca fresh from new 100m and 200m club records the previous weekend), Nicole Kendall in the 400m for her second win of the afternoon, Jade Lally in the Discus (also set a club record at UK Championships), Jude Bright Davies in the Triple Jump, Laurensa Britane in the Javelin with 44.75m her best throw for 6 years and the Men’s 4 x100m relay team (Reece Earle, Joel Houslin, Daniel Offiah and Kristian Samwell-Nash). Amelia Strickler threw a season’s best 17.76m winning the Shot Put.
The team managed by Manuel da Silva and Phil Wetton, which ranged from Internationals, National champions and very experienced athletes (Steve Whyte by far the most experienced) to under 17 athletes making their first appearance in the National League, performed brilliantly throughout the day with many great performances and were well supported by TVH officials and coaches, family and friends and physios Jade and Lloyd.
Nottingham photos taken by Christophe Cayssials first image Daniel Offiah
Manchester 11th June – there were many great performances from TVH athletes in the events that did take place at the first fixture. Adela Svihalkova won the women’s 800m in a personal best time of 2:09.21 (having won her 800m London Schools race at Battersea Park the day before) and Alex Mundell won the B race. Max Bishop and Basil Rock, two other young athletes coached by Dave Wilkinson also performed well in the 800m. Kate Olding was 2nd in the 3000m with Kosana Weir close behind winning the B string.
Angelita Broadbelt-Blake and Dani Hales took maximum points in the 100m Hurdles, Samuel Clarke and Nicole Kendall won the A string 400m Hurdles races. Nicole and Catherine Reynolds both finished second in the 400m races and Ricardo dos Santos Soares won the men’s 400m.
In the men’s 100m Daniel Offiah and Reece Earle finished 2nd and 3rd , Rachel Miller ran 11.71 and Annie Tagoe 11.67 in the women’s races. Will Perkin and Niki Faulkner finished 2nd in the A string and 1st in the B string 1500m, the last track event possible as the heaven’s opened.
TVH women took maximum points in two field events, Jade Lally and Sophie Mace in the discus, Montana Jackson and Ruth-Ann Otaruoh in the triple jump. Amelia Strickler won the Shot Put and Kayleigh Presswell was 2nd in the Hammer.
Manchester photos taken by Florian Vogel.