Once again Eleanor McIntosh was Bristol & West’s star performer at these prestigious Championships.
Eleanor stepped up from last week’s outstanding 300m race to tackle the 400m Senior Championship despite only being a first-year Under 20 athlete.
But step up she did.
She set a fearless pace in her heat passing 200m in 26.62 secs in a magnificent solo run to clock a brilliant 56.89 secs. She won that heat by almost 4 secs and almost surpassed Olympian Katharine EUSTACE’s Club Under 20 Indoor Record which stands at 56.85 secs.
In fact, Eleanor’s outdoor best last year as an under-17 was within grasping distance at 56.48 secs.
So on to the Semi-final where Eleanor, as 3rd fastest qualifier, was set against a girl that casually qualified in a time over 60 secs.
The race was an epic with Eleanor running slightly off the pace until her main opponent cruised up to her on the inside before the break. Eleanor then sprang into action trailing the other fresher girl who held a marginal lead right until coming off the final bend. Eleanor then made one final effort and closed to within 3 hundredths of a second to be thwarted in her bid for a final place.
Eleanor’s 57.15 time was just not enough to take that final place against 57.12 secs. Devastating but magnificent. Perhaps there will be a more satisfying result (medals) next week when she competes in the Welsh U20 Championships.
Our Women Sprinters also showed well with London-based Khia’aama KOFI and Long Jump specialist Ella BOWELL on the entry list.
Each athlete closely matched their performances in the heats with Khia’aama clocking 7.85 secs and Ella going to 7.88 secs. Both made it to the semi-finals with Khia’aama improving slightly to 7.83 secs and Ella slipping to 7.98 secs but sadly both failed to make it to a high-class final.
Ella also competed the following day in her specialist event Long Jump and although not particularly happy with her run-up she still achieved an indoor PB of 5.49m.
In the Men’s 60m Josh MAGGS was our only entry but he ran really well to make it to the semi-final.
Josh, now at Bath University, opened with 7.21 in his heat and was not particularly happy with that performance but in the Semi-final Josh bucked up and clocked a very respectable 7.14 secs which was extremely close to his PB of 7.11 secs.
Jedani WRIGHT competed again in the Triple Jump which has seen him in action over the past three weeks. Jed had gained a new indoor PB in those previous events and showed slight signs of fatigue this week but still finished with a fine jump of 13.70m to take 5th place.
Elsewhere this month I note an indoor PB for Khia’aamah KOFI with a 26,23 clocking and an excellent 22.42 secs for Josh MAGGS at Lee Valley on 20th Jan.
Other 60m sprint times close to PB’s in January were 6.94 from Jody SMITH; 7.18 from Josh MAGGS, 7.30 from Mark COTTAM & 7.67 from Matthew Hula.
Mike Strange – 29th January 2024
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