NAL Premiership Round 2 – Woodford – Saturday 11th July

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Written by Alex Seftel

Thames Valley Harriers won back-to-back NAL Premiership matches in Woodford to put themselves on course to reclaim the title from second-placed Harrow AC.

On a day when an unusual combination of scorching, yet blustery conditions graced Ashton Playing Fields, Great Britain triple jumper Georgie Forde-Wells set an all-conditions NAL long jump best for the home club, Woodford Green with Essex Ladies. Meanwhile, her Olympic and world medallist team-mate Yemi Mary John ran 24.14s to win the 200m into a -5.7 m/s wind.

Forde-Wells’ 6.52m (+5.1 m/s) effort is the furthest jump since the league re-formed for 2021 with men and women competing together. It tops the previous best of 6.49w set by Rebecca Chapman in 2021, with the wind-legal best remaining 6.42 by Abigail Irozuru in 2023. The all-time league record – covering all women’s performances since 1975 – still stands at 6.69 to Fiona May from 1989.

TVH’s Molly Palmer – a training partner of Forde-Wells, who is also part of England’s Commonwealth Games squad – finished second with 6.35 (+3.3 m/s) and had the best wind-legal effort of 6.26m.

“I’m so happy, we’ve been working on a new run-up. I sprained my ankle at British Champs, so I wasn’t able to triple jump today, but I’m really pleased to do long jump and a PB, whether it be windy or not,” said Forde-Wells, who set a wind-legal PB of 6.42m at the UK Athletics Championships last month.

“I’m super excited for Commies, it’ll be a great experience,” she added – as she looks forward to Glasgow with Palmer. “We went to World Indoors, which was our first senior vest together. Our first training camp together was the Commonwealth camp four years ago, so it’s quite a nice circle moment to actually be going,” she added. Her club finished fourth in the overall match standings.

Windsor, Slough, Eton & Hounslow’s Jake Norris – who is also heading to Glasgow for those Games – achieved an excellent distance of 76.27m to win the hammer. That is his 10th NAL victory and it means that three out of his top seven competitions have come in the league.

Norris said: “Definitely pleased. The Commonwealth Games are just over two weeks out for me and I’ve just moved back onto the competition hammer so this is a good starting point for two weeks time. The venues that the NALs are at usually are good facilities, Woodford Green definitely being one of them and the last one in Eton…my home track, it’s where I train,” he told the National Athletics League.

On the Games in Glasgow, he added: “It’s going to be a really good competition to try and get into the top three. A month ago, I was ranked second, I am currently ranked fourth, but second, third and fourth are all tightly ranked together, so even getting in the medals would be a really good achievement. That’s the goal.”

Harrow started off strongly on the track, taking both of the men’s 400m hurdles races through Hayden Christian and Max Schopp in respective times of 51.37 and 53.13, before Sofia Vidak lead all the way in the 800m and finished in 2:10.04. They were without the ever-reliable Nick Percy in the discus, but picked up a strong victory through Ore Adepegba’s 7.38m in the long jump.

But Thames Valley kept up the great spirit, consistency, depth that we have become accustomed to seeing over the last five years. After winning the 800m and 1500m in Derby, Charlotte Buckley took the 3000m in 9:44.13 and finished second to Vidak in the 800m. Ezekiel Lowe and Daniel Offiah then locked out the men’s 200m with times of 21.07 and 21.52 respectively.

Behind the top two, Glasgow Jaguars secured an excellent third overall in the match. Mhairi Patience gave them an early moment to celebrate as she powered through to take the 400m hurdles A race in 60.95, but even more joyous was their women’s 4x100m triumph thanks to Glasgow 2026-bound Alyson Bell, along with Ihinosen Ibhanesebhor, Erin Campbell and Sarah Malone.

Will Ritchie-Moulin of Birchfield Harriers continued his 100 per cent record in NAL 110m hurdlers competition since the start of the 2024 season, taking a fifth victory in his favoured event in that period in a time of 14.12s.

Talking of winning streaks, Tonbridge AC’s Ted Higgins followed up his 800m win in Derby but coming across the line in 1:48.26, six seconds clear of the competition.

Swansea Harriers’ Hannah Brier set a personal best by 0.02s to win the 400m in 52.23. F38 athlete Michael Jenkins won the discus with 57.52 before Eniola Adedotun was the first of four athletes covered by just 0.04s in the men’s 100m. His winning time of 10.92s was bettered by 10.82s by Harrow’s Destiny Ogali in the B race.

Full match result:

TVH – 8 – 652
Harrow – 7 – 619
Glasgow – 6 – 472
WGEL – 5 – 454.5
Tonbridge – 4 – 388.5
WSEH – 3 – 368.6
Birchfield – 2 – 338.5
Swansea – 1 – 265