The HHH women’s track and field team go from strength to strength and on a day where sunshine turned to rain at Kingsmeadow, but the wind had for once dropped, our team simply blew away the opposition in our opening UW Womens League match with a dominant win from the start to the end of the afternoon. We closed the proceedings a huge 60 points to the good over our closest rivals Reading. This was a superb all round effort from a young and largely home grown team, which included 12 under 20’s and 13 team members have come through the ranks via the National Young Athletes League.
As with our men’s BAL team the day before we saved the best until last in the final event of the day, the 4 x 400m relay, as an all under 20 team of Jess Knight, Adelle Tracey, Hannah Edwards and Katie Snowden bettered the existing club senior women’s record by almost 4 seconds. Jessie’s opening 59.9 split in 2nd place was followed by Adelle running a very good 57.7 to take us into a lead that was extended to emphatic proportions by Hannah’s 59.9 and Katie’s awesome solo lap which took a mere 55.1 seconds to bring the baton home in a combined time of 3.52.60. The fastest 4 x 400m time recorded by a HHH U20 quartet before this performance was 4.12.0!
Other highlights included Katie’s equally solo, but just as convincing 800m victory in 2.07.83, with a second lap only marginally slower than her first, something that is hard to do when you are totally unchallenged but had to be done when chasing the qualifying time for the IAAF World Youth Championship of 2.08.5. Hopefully the required 400m time will also soon be in the bag on the evidence of Katie’s anchor relay leg and before the selectors will deliberate on their team composition. Our B 800m runner in her HHH debut, Adelle, will also hope to have junior international selection on her radar and although not running as fast as Katie looked every bit the top quality runner that she is with a comfortable race win in 2.16.76.
In the longer races, Cathy Ansell had felt under the weather following a head cold, but she disguised it very well during her equally clear wins in the 3000m (9.52.76) and 1500m (4.40.70) as we continued to rack up our points tally, with good support from Karen Ellison in the 3000m (11.01.05) and with Karen also contributing in the 2000m steeplechase (8.15.4).
Our throwers also scored well enough, none better than our double first in the javelin, courtesy of Charlotte Kanini Parsons (35.70m) and Briony Philips (28.17m), while Briony also won the B string shot (10.78m) and placed 3rd in the A discus (34.44m). Gabriella Roseje also competed in 3 throwing events, with 2nd in the A shot (11.18m) and 3rd in both the B hammer (32.20m) and discus (33.11m), accompanied by Selina Walters in the hammer, who was 5th in the A string (37.78m).
We often rely upon good points in the sprint races, and here Michelle Watson placed 3rd in both the A 100m (12.41) and 200m (25.72) in strong races, while Shanice Harrison won the B 100m (12.43) and Funto Fabunmi-Alade was an equally good winner of the B 200m (25.23). Lyndsey St Luce Boyce, Funto, Michelle and Shanice combined to win the sprint relay as an appetiser for the 4 x 400m win that was to follow.
In the individual 400m A race Jess Knight was 3rd in 57.24 and Laura Dowsing was 5th in the B string with 63.02, while our hurdlers also did very well as Aisha Naibe Wey placed 4th in the 100m hurdles (16.95) after she had earlier scored a fine win in the B 400m hurdles with a PB of 65.09. Rebecca Zelic won the B 100m hurdles in 16.65, while Hannah Edwards continued her transition into 400m hurdling with 4th in the A string (66.48).
Rosa Williams cleared 3.20m for 3rd in the A pole vault, well supported by Angharad Seaton’s B string win (2.90m). Jane Ejimafugha was 3rd in the triple jump (10.48m), with Rebecca adding a B triple jump win (10.23m) and 3rd in the A long jump (4.80m) to her B hurdles win. Jane was 2nd in the B long jump with 4.30m, but did not clear a height in the high jump, where Aisha cleared 1.25m for 7th.
All in all this was a fabulous opening match win in which everybody played their part for the team and with some outstanding performances we can look forward to the remaining two fixtures at Crawley on 2nd July and Leeds on 7th August with a real chance of moving up to Division 2 if enough of our best women are able to compete in these matches.
The match score was HHH 256, Reading 196, Liverpool 188, Crawley 161, Channel Islands 160, Belgrave 159, Leeds 129, Coventry 93.
Geoff Jerwood
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