Sunday saw a welcome return of the National Youth Development League . With a revised County structure to restrict travel during COVID our Under 20’s and Under 17’s ended up pitted against former national champions Blackheath and Bromley, national finalists Tonbridge along with strong squads from Medway & Maidstone and Dartford, not to mention a combined team made up of the best of Ashford, Thanet, Invicta and Paddock Wood. Halfway through the afternoon we were surpassing all expectations lying in a heady second place, though slipped back to fourth out of six at the end of the day. Either way it was a great start to the season.
There were some stand out performances as the sun finally came out for an athletics match. Dejaune Lingard and Dante Legister continued their neck and neck improvement trajectory recording times of 10.96 and 11.04 for the 100m respectively (though Dante will tell you Dejaune’s time was wind assisted!). In the women’s sprints Shawnna Williams and Chichi Cooper did well picking up 2nd places in the 200m in 26.25 and 27.13 and then Chichi excelled in the triple jump, competing for the first time in the event she landed a 10.96 jump in one of the final rounds to put her in the UK top 10. Also having their first outing was Aaron Abayomi in the Under 17 men’s 100 hurdles (2nd in 15.37), Orin Vitalis (400H 1st in 66.30), whilst there was a big improvements for Eva Armitage-Woods -13 second PB in the 1500, 5:24.14.
Eva Armitage Woods big PB in the 1500m
In the field Alex Bridge moved up an age group and so had her first competition with the 4k shot and threw 9.52 for an initial PB, whilst in the javelin Katie Marsh threw 37.99 to win comfortably.
Katie Marsh
Inez rice, Maja and Nikol Croft and Reuben Chandler all set PB's in other events and added to our healthy points score. In one of the final events, Dante and Dejaune teamed up with Divine Akinlolu and Shaquille Fernandez-Folkes to win the 4x100 relay in 44.21 and will surely threaten the club record of 43.8 before the end of the season.
Elsewhere it was great to see some of those who have graduated from our Under 20 team doing well. Brandon Mingeli secured his first international vest representing the England Under 23 team in the Loughborough International, Craig Lacy threw 63.41 at the Lee Valley Throws Fest to rank him 10th in the UK, whilst Sabrina Sinha released from the pressure of final exams and University coursework has had some fine early season outings culminating in a 2:05.57 800m at the BMC Grand Prix meet in Manchester on Saturday and a 4:21.14 1500 two days earlier. With time now to concentrate on training the Olympic trials are her main target with options to go for either 8 or 15 at that event.
Sabrina Sinha (80) coming off the bend in the 800m
In other events last week Gaby Noyce won the London Schools U15 Girls combined events championship and Wole Odele ran a 57.85 400m at the Blackheath Open Sprints Meeting and now tops the UK M55 rankings for both 400 and 800.
Next weekend we move back to the younger age group with our Under 13 and Under 15 team competing at Sutcliffe on Saturday afternoon in the YDL.
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