26 May 2019 - U17/U20 - Crawley
Full
results here...
Photos start here...
The junior Blackheath & Bromley team have been so
dominant in the UK YDL over the past few years it has been easy to take
success for granted. So when our first match of the season ended with a
heavy defeat (to SBH) it was quite a wake-up call. We went into the second
match at Crawley on Sunday with something to prove and the athletes didn’t
disappoint.
So whilst the junior men were still blighted by
holidays, exams, injuries and the Westminster Mile (fhs!) those that did
make their way to the K2 stadium produced some fantastic results. In all 18
A-string victories and a further 9 B-string wins, 20 PBs and the fastest U20
4x100 time in the UK this year! Overall the result turned a 60 point defeat
in Match 1 into a 40 point win in Match 2, leaving us level on points at the
top of the table.
We welcomed back from injury several of last season’s
stars including Josh Watson who was close to his PB in both 400H and 110H;
Peter Guy PB’d in the 400m and Ben Sutton who produced a 6.98m PB to win the
long jump. It was good to see Josh Gbagbo back in action and he produced a
13m jump for 2nd in the Triple Jump; Another returnee, George Pope was still
suffering from a hand injury but managed 3.50m in the PV and 3rd in the 400m
despite only realising he was running the race minutes before it started (it
pays to check all the way down the team sheet George!).
The real difference from the first match was at
under-17 level where we the side was bolstered by some great season’s
debuts: In the Triple jump Abdul Rahim and Andrew Khazali impressed, and
Barnaby Spear won the discus B–string. He also showed he has a talent for
sprint hurdles, narrowly missing 2nd place in the B-string in his first ever
attempt at the event, only possible as he was loaned a pair of (size 11)
spikes from Dillon Claydon! (Dillon himself had a great afternoon with a 42m
PB to win the discus, he also won the B-string shot). In the distance events
we were able to field a full complement of athletes with Jake Leng, Harvey
Blanden, Will Andrews and Bailey Marks all in the mix. Special praise too
for Freddy Georgiou who was willing and able to take on anything and his
enthusiasm was rewarded with a great 3k and a 10 second PB in the
steeplechase. It was also good to see Charles Nortey make his YDL debut (in
the 200m) after recently impressing in the county champs.
We also welcomed some fantastic new joiners to the
club, Jeriel Quainoo looks an incredible talent winning the U17 100m
A-string and achieving 21.97 in the 200m - the fastest time of anyone on the
day (including U20s). Jak Mensah (part of Jon Barbour’s Hounslow training
group) took a good second in the 100m B-string and he was part of the
aforementioned 4x1 UK-leading quartet. U17 second claim joiners included
Nathan Bushnell who won the U17 shot with an impressive 13.93m and he took a
B string win in the javelin. Gifted multi-eventer Oli Early was runner up in
the sprint hurdles and the long jump as well as producing 1.75 in the HJ.
Paolo Belchior (another member of the Jon Barbour group) took second in the
400m B-string.
Alex O’Callaghan Brown produced a sizzling performance
in winning the 4 hurdles, his time of 53.76 was well over a second quicker
than he’d run before. Ben Hawkes produced a clean sweep in the heavy throws,
winning hammer, shot and discus – the latter with a PB just shy of 50m. We
cleaned up once again in the U17 pole vault with Barnaby Corry and Ethan
Kitteridge taking A and B strings respectively whilst in the middle distance
events, the “Stickings Project” produced some sensational results: Angus and
Ollie Bright both delivered win doubles in the 1500 & 800 A strings at
U20/U17 respectively and stablemate Matthew Francis took the B string 800m
and was narrowly runner up in the 1500 B-string.
Kelechi was once again imperious in the high jump, Ben
Gardiner won the 2k chase, Matt Knight took the 200m B string with ease and
there were PBs for Reece Nelson (400) and Andre Brown (HT). Ethan Brown had
a busy afternoon winning the 200m A string and anchoring both relay teams to
victory – the 4x1 team (with Jak, Matt and Chizute) set an U20 “UK lead” of
42.33!
Rod
Photos from Rod Harrington
