We headed to the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield for the Indoor Athletics Championships as part of BUCS Nationals on 15-17th Feb!
A weekend of high-quality athletics saw us take our biggest ever team, with a massive increase in competitors with 13 individual competitors and men’s and women’s 4x200m relay team! We only had 3 individuals and one relay team last year so it’s brilliant to see the increase in engagement.
Ore, Tinashe and Megan ran well in 60m against a highly competitive field. The Friday saw Aric and Finnie bagging PBs in the 800m, with Finnie just narrowly missing out on a semi-final by 0.4 secs. Hannah S ran a really strong time in the women’s 800m whilst on the field Nicole jumped well in the women’s triple jump! Yes, field! For the first time ever, we had a field team at BUCS, a testament to the development of our new field squad this year – Oli, Sophie and Tomasz making up the rest of the competing field squad.
An early start on the Saturday saw an entire minibus and a car head up to Sheffield for day 2 of competition, amazing to see so many people competing, promising signs for BUCS outdoors! Aiste, Hannah W and Toby lead the line for day 2, smashing great times in the 1500m. The 400m followed with Megan running a good time coming back into form, and Finnie again narrowly missing out on a semi-final, this time by just 0.09 secs but smashing a PB and Steve Parkes’ club record which had stood since 2013! On the field, Nicole and Oli lined up on the runway of the long jump, both flying through the air with great jumps meanwhile Tomasz looked sharp in the shot, preparing well for his preferred Discuss come the summer. The mascot race followed which we didn’t feature in this year, but with the new Team Leicester Griffin it looks like next year we might be in the running! The day concluded with the ever entertaining and dramatic 4x200m relays! The men were up first; Oli, Luqman, James and Dom running well, Dom nailing the fastest split time. Followed by the girls; Megan, Lizzie, Nicole and Hannah with Megan nailing the fastest split closely followed by Hannah. The girls were unfortunately disqualified, wrongly so we felt but our appeal was unsuccessful, meaning the girls missed out on what would’ve been a club record!
The Sunday saw the final day of competition and Ore going in the 200m, but it was to be an unfortunate end to the weekend as Ore pulled up half way round – wishing him a speedy recovery!
Overall an amazing weekend for the club, firmly cementing the strong development of our athletics squad this year who now prepare for outdoors in May! Well done all :D
