Written by Alex Seftel
NAL Premiership Round 3 – Birmingham – Saturday 3rd August
Thames Valley Harriers (TVH) won the final National Athletics League match of the season in Birmingham to seal their fourth consecutive league title.
TVH’s Amelia Campbell extended her perfect record of 12 wins from 12 NAL competitions in the final performance of her career.
Commonwealth discus silver medallist Jade Lally was another one of their winners on the day in what she has said will likely be the final season of her career.
Campbell’s best distance was 17.18 metres, while Lally hurled the discus out to 53.65.
Jess Tappin won both the A String 400m hurdles and B String 400m in her last match for the club, with respective times of 58.45 and 54.65.
Title rivals Harrow AC put up a strong fight and didn’t led TVH establish an unassailable lead until late in the afternoon.
Owen Heard – another who performed at the Commonwealth Games in the same stadium two years ago – flew over 5.42 and was 39 centimetres ahead of the second-placed athlete Thomas Whalley.
There was also a one-two finish for the club in the men’s steeplechase through Thomas Dugre and Terry Fawden, as the gap between the top two narrowed to less than 30 points.
But TVH continued to score highly all the way through, with Joel Clarke-Khan clearing 2.12 to win the high jump, while Lily Hulland was just nine centimetres behind Adelaide Omitowoju’s winning triple jump of 12.91.
Windsor, Slough, Eton and Hounsow’s (WSEH) started the track events with 12 points as Tyri Donovan backed up his league record in the first match of the season at Eton with a 49.28-second winning time.
While he was competing, Alice Hopkins leapt out to 6.32 metres to take victory in the women’s long jump.
Her team mate Charlotte Payne threw 67.56 for maximum points in the hammer, before Great Britain’s Jake Norris completed a winning double for the club with an impressive 76.93.
Third-placed Birchfield Harriers battled very hard to stay in the Premiership, with James Tomlinson winning the discus by nearly 10 metres, courtesy of a furthest throw of 57.17.
Efe Okoro shaded TVH’s Chris McAlister with times of 46.65 and 47.09 in the A String 400m.
Aron Gebremariam completed the season as unbeaten in the 1500m, with victory this time coming 3:49.13, ahead of Woodford Green and Essex’s UK 3000m steeplechase champion Phil Norman, who ran 3:51.89.
One of WGEL’s highlights was a blistering men’s 4x100m relay performance in which they could not be caught, crossing the line in 40.66.
A determined Thames Valley just held off Harrow behind them in what could be seen as a microcosm of the title race.
Youcef Zatat posted 18.29 to top the shot put leaderboard for the second time in successive matches.
Fourth-placed Sale Harriers produced their best overall performance of the season, winning the men’s A String and B String 100m through Nicholas Walsh and Andy Robertson in 10.28 and 10.47.
Later, Rachel Bennett helped the team win both the 200m and 4x100m relay and Tess McHugh’s 53.84 clocking sealed 400m victory.
But Success Eduan was beaten by fellow Great Britain junior international Alyson Bell of Glasgow Jaguars in the 100m in one of the most exciting races of the day.
11.51 was the time for Bell, and like Walsh’s effort, it was wind legal.
Jaguars look to have placed fifth overall, as Scott Hopper was four centimetres off his personal best as he won the javelin with a best throw of 63.66, while Beth Ansell followed up her 800m victory in Woodford by beating her opponents in a time of 2:08.92.
It wasn’t the easiest of days for Blackheath and Bromley, though they did convincingly win the men’s 3000m through Jack Kavanagh in 8:27.36, as we await the final standings for the league season to confirm who will stay in the Premiership for 2025.
