An exciting weekend of competition saw new Championship Best Performances figures in an amazing nine events heralding it an overwhelming success for the first track & field competition since the launch of the Northern Athletics affiliation scheme.
The fantastic performances got underway early as Scunthorpe athlete Archie Yeo smashed the 25 year old record in the Under 17 Long Jump by 35cms recording a distance of 7.33m at the end of a great series of jumps which included a leap of 7.07m which had also surpassed the previous record of 6.98m.
A great start to the day!
Hannah Molyneaux of City of Sheffield continued her progress in the U20 Shot with a throw of 13.87m and Abigail Irozuru of Sale took the Senior Long Jump title with a 6.29 jump.
In the Senior Men’s shot, title holder Scott Lincoln from City of York didn’t quite manage to match his 2017 CBP of 18.87 but came close with 18.74, well ahead of his rivals.
Rising star all- rounder Abigail Pawlett (Stockport H) claimed the U17 Women’s long jump title with a leap of 5.90m – only 9cms short of Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s 2008 CBP.
Sydney Robertson , Christopher Lamb and Jasmine Carey took the SW ,U20M and U17 Women’s pole Vault titles respectively.
The new records continued being set in the SM Triple Jump where Oluwaseun Okome of Sale surpassed his own CBP from 2018 with new marks of 15.84 finishing ahead of his Sale colleagues Kevin Metzger and Jonathan Ferryman.
The outstanding Triple Jump performances continued on the second day of the Championships as Sale’s Naomi Ogbeta also smashed her own 2018 CBP, jumping 13.49m to set a new record.
The U20 Women’s Triple Jump title went to Grace Plater of Leeds City and Archie Yeo added the U17 Men’s Triple Jump title to his Long Jump victory from earlier in the day.
Other Field event Champions from Day one included Sale’s international Heptathlete Jess Taylor-Jemmett who took the Women’s shot title and Chuks Osammor from Hallamshire Harriers won the U20 Men’s shot.
Lucy Hadaway (City of York) took the U20W Long Jump title with a CBP of 6.23 that ousted Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s 2010 record of 6.20 and U17Man Shane Connell of Sale jumped 2.09m which outstripped a 13 year old CBP of 2.05m.
Abigail Pawlett collected her second gold of the weekend by winning the U17W High Jump and GBR international Adam Hague pole vaulted a comfortable 5.20m to take victory in the SM pole vault.
Overall an outstanding weekend on the field with an unprecedented number of Championship Best Performances………but it didn’t end there! The track athletes were not to be outdone and they made their own contribution to the success of the Championships with three further record breaking performances. The first of these went to Ashley Nemits of Warrington AC in the U17W 300m where she recorded a time of 40.03. Danielle Hodgkinson (Wallsend H) took the SW 3000m title and record back to the North East with a performance of 9:32.41 and it was good to see Leeds City athlete Jenny Walsh back in form and taking the silver.
Sale Harrier’s sprint star Andrew Robertson returned to the Championships and smashed his own 2010 record of 6.76 with a stunning run of 6.68 in the last event of day one.
The SM 200m was a close battle which was won by Sale’s Connor Wood very closely followed by Adam Walker-Khan of Sheffield who added a gold to his silver with victory in the SM 400m.
Abigail Pawlett and Lucy Hadaway added to their golden hauls by claiming victory in the U17 and U20 60m Hurdles events respectively and the final CBP of the weekend was set by Hallamshire Harriers athlete Gabriel Gisborne in the U17M 800m with a terrific run of 1:57.83 beating the 11 year old previous record mark.
Other outstanding performances came from Markhim Lonsdale (SM 800m), Trafford AC’s U20M 200 athlete Sagesse Nguie amongst others too numerous to mention.
The success of the weekend showed that the athletes in the North are going from strength to strength and we at Northern Athletics will continue to support them and provide the best competition that we are able. The introduction of the Northern affiliation scheme will give us the means to continue to fulfil our remit of providing meaningful events for all our affiliated clubs in the North who have given us their support and we thank them for their loyalty and the faith that they have shown in us.
Onward and upward is our vision for the future and this weekend the Northern athletes have shown us that this is exactly what they are aspiring to on the track and in the field. Congratulations to all of you – you all contributed to a great weekend of athletics.
Our thanks also go to all our Northern Technical Officials who once again proved themselves to be the best group in the country who, with the continuation of Northern Championships, will also be able to progress in their chosen disciplines and achieve National and International recognition alongside many of our athletes.
There are some great photographs of the event from our official photographer Steve Bateson available on our Facebook page.
Full Results
Judith Temperton
