The 29th of February saw BUAC's first track competition of 2020. Up in the northern regions of Sheffield our team of 30 were victorious (by 1 point) to win overall.
The day began with some field events, an outstanding new shot put PB for Emma Bakare (12.74m) put her in second place, with Alice Linaker throwing 9.06m for 5th. Jamie Worman also threw 9.54m for his first event of the day. We also had Cara Brown who jumped a season best of 2.50m in the pole vault.
On the track the first race of the day for BUAC was the women's 60m, with wins from both Hannah Jones and Lauren Butler in heats 1 and 2 to kick start us off with full points. We also had Alice Linaker, Mairead Kearney and Natalia Alipranti clocking great times in the women's 60m. Next it was the Men's turn, fresher Cameron Bailey ran 7.19 to get 2nd in the 1st heat and Denzell Owusu ran 7.13 to get 3rd in the 2nd heat. Also running were Jack Hocking (7.22s) and Thomas Butcher (7.66s).
Jack was then straight back in action for his main event, 400m, running a solid 48.74s to get the win by a 2 second margin. Jamie Worman clocked his first 400m time in 3 years to get a 55.25 in heat 2. In the last 400m heat we had a BUAC head-to-head of Alastar Phelan (55.30) vs Charlie Scott (56.15) to finish us off.
In the long jump we had Luke Okosieme with a lovely PB of 5.29m in his first long jump competition since 2016. Danny Lamb jumped PB of 6.78m for 2nd and Jake Burkey 6.72m for 3rd, both of them preparing well for BUCS Indoors next weekend. Jake Burkey also dabbled in the High Jump for the first time in 3 years to come away with an impressive PB of 1.90m for 3rd place.
On the girls' side of jumps we had Hannah Jones taking 3rd with a jump of 5.29m as well as Emma Bakare in 9th (4.95m) and Alice Linaker in 11th (4.71m). In the triple jump Natalia Alipranti jumped a season best of 10.04m to take 8th place.
Next we had some of our longer track events. Francesca Brint and Tilly Simpson went in the 1500m race and stormed ahead of the field straight away. Her indoor 1500m debut saw Cesca run a 4:35.76, and having not competed on the indoor track for 2 years Tilly Simpson came away with a 4:50.49, a whole 30 seconds ahead of the rest of the field. The men's 1500m had a very competitive field but with a close finish Sergio Argul slipped ahead in 4:03.18 to take the win for Birmingham. After a competitive 1500m Sergio went ahead and doubled up with the 3000m as well to take the win in 8:57.28 with James Morgan taking 2nd place in 9:01.17.
Coming back to some speed Lauren Butler did her 2nd race of the day in the 200m coming away with 25.80s for 2nd. We also had Mairead Kearney in the 2nd heat with 27.01s. Then the men's 200m had Cameron Bailey also in his second race of the day to clock a very impressive 22.30s to get 2nd in the 1st heat, then Josh Bentley also grabbed 2nd with 23.54s in the second heat. Danny Lamb also ran a storming 200m for 2nd in heat 5 in 22.92s. The last BUAC 200m had another head to head with Giacomo Fiorindo in 1st with 23.57s and Thomas Butcher 2nd in 23.87s.
Back to some middle distance in the 800m where again the Birmingham women dominated with a SB of 2:10.27 for Francesca Brint who took the win and an amazing 2:13.57 for Ellie Ravenscroft in her second 800m for the year. On the men's side we had Dan Maud taking 3rd in 1:57.30 and Josh Allen in 5th with 2:05.15. Heat 2 we had a BUAC head to head of Tom Mackman vs Ollie Johnson, Ollie Johnson stormed to 2nd place with 1:59.67 a great sub 2 clocking and Tom Mackman was just shy of his PB in his season opener with 2:01.75, big things to come yet for him.
The last track event of the day was the men's and women's relay. A huge last leg from Hannah Jones saw the women's team take victory by a good 2 seconds. The Men's team also took victory with a storming last leg from Jack Hocking to edge the win by 0.1s. A second heat saw another Birmingham team get 3rd to end the day on a high.
A week later we travelled south, down to Lee Valley for our final competition before the big BUCS weekend.
We began the day with some distance races where Tilly Simpson came home in 1st place with a season's best performance, whilst also winning the 1500m later on in the day with another season's best of 4:44.81. Full points for Tilly all round. On the men’s side we had Tom Dodd winning the 800m by front running a 1:51.76, we hope to see this kind of form at BUCS Indoors. Also in the same race, Josh Allen improved on the previous week's performance by running 1:57.61. Josh later decided to throw himself into a 400m race running 51.54s which sees him qualifying for a place in the 400m at BUCS indoors. In the 800m guest races we had Guy Perkins in 6th for his indoor season debut and Ollie Johnson in 2nd. Tom Mackman concluded our 800m representation in the last guest race with 2:02.99. Once again, we had an Ollie Johnson/Tom Mackman head-to-head in the 1500m, with Ollie getting 3rd place in 4:10.25 and Mackman coming away with a big 3 second PB of 4:17.10, a successful day for both of them.
In the short sprints we started with the 200m, with Lauren Butler 3rd in the A race and Mairead Kearney 2nd in the B race. We will see both Lauren and Mairead competing in the 200m at BUCS indoors on Sunday with a gruelling 3 rounds in one day as well as a potential relay final. In the guest race we had Rachel Thorp with her BUAC debut for 4th place. On the men’s side we had fresher Cameron Bailey with 22.26s for 1st place and Josh Bentley with 24.03 for 4th place. We will also see them both competing in the 200m and relay at BUCS Indoors. In the guest race we had Giacomo Fiorindo (2nd), Thomas Butcher (3rd) and Jonny Currie (5th). Jonny came away with his first PB in the 200 for 8 years as well as competing in the 400m an hour later with 58.37s for 4th in his 1st 400 in two years.
Going even shorter to the 60m, in the B race we had Lauren Butler with 8.09s for 2nd and the guest races included Mairead Kearney (3rd) and Rachel Thorp (6th). It was great to see Yvette Westwood with 8.08s having just come back from injury. In the 60mH we had Alice Linaker with 9.88s for 3rd. On the men’s side Danny Lamb came away with a 60m PB of 7.11s, having already competed in the long jump with 6.34m. Denzell Owusu matched Dannys 7.11s run in the men’s B race for 1st place. In the guest race Giacomo Fiorindo competed for the second time that day with 7.49s for 4th place. In the 60mH Jamie Worman smashed out a 9.41s for 4th place after already having competed in the high jump earlier in the day. Jamie rounded up his day with a shot put PB of 10.81m. We hope to see Jamie match these performances at BUCS Indoors where he will compete in all three events.
In the field events we had wins for Jake Burkey with 6.68m in the long jump, Emma Bakare with 12.70m in the shot put and Luke Okosieme jumping 2.00m for 1st place in the high jump. We also had two third places for Emma in the triple jump with 11.09m and Cara Brown with 2.30m in the pole vault.
Overall, it was a successful 2 indoor competitions with plenty of PBs and head-to-heads throughout. Looking ahead to BUCS Indoors our strong team of 36 is composed of five 2019 BUCS medal winners and many new faces who have never even been to a BUCS competition before. We are very excited to see everyone compete this weekend!!