After almost creating a new Club U20 Indoor record and closely missing qualifying for the final in the Welsh Senior Championships last week, Eleanor McINTOSH returned to Cardiff this week to contest the Open Welsh U20 Championships. She entered as the firm favourite after last week’s wonderful 56.48 secs clocking and immediately imposed herself as she cruised through her heat in 58.41 secs.
In the final, Eleanor continued her dominance. From the outside lane, she powered away from the field, passing the 200m mark in 26.5 secs and finishing untroubled in 57.59 secs, a full 2 secs clear of the second placer. Well done, Ellie! You did B&W proud to stand on that rostrum as Welsh Open Champion for 2024 in your first year as an under-20.
It was surprising, considering the popularity of Cardiff as a Bristol & West Indoor venue, that Eleanor was our only competitor.
B&W Athletes at other venues are reported below.
Talented Patrick KYLE U20 finally entered for 60m hurdles at the Senior Men’s specification and came away with a Club Record of 8.69 secs for that age group. Patrick is now at Birmingham University and is working hard with the outstanding Birchfield H group. He is obviously benefiting greatly from this work and will be filling a large hurdles gap for the Club this summer.
Also almost ready to step up a height is George ISGROVE who is a couple of years behind Patrick. Over the U20 heights, George improved his pb quite considerably, clocking 8.38 secs at Loughborough this Saturday. George is working hard under the guidance of Julie ALEXANDER at Whitehall and at Bath. Also working with Julie is Multi-Eventer Melissa CHOONG. Melissa U23 who is studying at Bristol University and hails from Malaysia High Jumped a creditable 1.57m. One hopes that Melissa will try out at some of her other Heptathlon events on the Indoor scene before the end of the season.
Our top sprinters were out in force at Sheffield again on Saturday. Jody SMITH headed the group to equal his pb with a 6.94 secs clocking for 60m, while Isaac MARSH U23 clocked 7.15 secs before moving on to 200m in the excellent time of 22.29 secs. Matthew HULA U23 did two 60m runs in which he clocked a new pb of 7.48 secs and then in his second run 7.55 secs.
Over in the USA, Tia JACKSON slipped from her standard of around 6.00m in the Long Jump to finish with a leap of 5.37m in New York.
Mike Strange – 6th February 2024
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