Oxford run rings round Tabs
There were varying emotions for Oxford athletes who spent their bank holiday weekend competing among the very best in the country at the BUSA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. The sun certainly shone on Monday • the final day of the three-day competition • when two of Oxford’s best competitors took gold. Lizi Brathwaite, cruised to victory in her heat on Sunday.
In a field graced with the presence of former GB Junior Laura Kenney and current GB endurance athlete Eleanor Baker, Monday’s final saw Braithwaite sit comfortably at the front of the pack waiting to strike. A slow start suited her, and with 600 metres to go, Braithwaite raced through the gears to reach the leaders. Coming into the final straight, the Oxford star flicked the accelerator once more to bring home the individual title in a time of 4.29.
Oxford’s second gold came from OUAC legend Nick Talbot. He came top out of a highly-talented field including Commonwealth Games representative Luke Gunn. Talbot ran a gutsy race and had to demonstrate supreme resilience in to cross the line in 14.20. Oxford’s final medal was clinched by top high-jumper Ailsa Wallace. Having won silver at BUSA Indoors, she was delighted to build on this performance and take the bronze at this year’s outdoor competition with a 1.65-metre clearance.
Wallace is also looking forward to the prospect of turning the tables on the Tabs to claim Varsity victory this year. There was agony and ecstasy for 800-metre specialist James Hogan. Having missed last year’s track season through illness, Hogan has bounced back to produce some strong performances this year, building on a good winter in which he achieved his full Blue for the second year running. He finished in fourth place with a time of 1.53.- just hundredths of a second from claiming a medal position.
There was also frustration for other Oxford athletes who had hoped to perform better in the finals. Women’s captain Martine Bomb ran excellently to produce a personal best of 14.67 in the heats of the 110m hurdles, but was disappointed not to build on this in the final, where she finished sixth in a time of 14.85.
“I got off to a bad start,” she later said, “I clipped the first three hurdles, and just couldn’t get back into my rhythm.” Significant success came from the performances of the men’s and women’s relays teams. The men managed to attain fifth place in the 4x100 event, the team made up of Pete Harding, Mark Ponsford, Sean Gourley, and Toleme Ezekiel. Bomb got the ladies off to a flying start, while Natalie McManus and Katie Sam had solid runs to keep the team in a good position.
Brathwaite, despite having just finished her 1500-metre race, secured the position with a 56.94 split. A couple of awkward changeovers unfortunately ruled them out of the running for a medal. Frances Smithson, the fourth runner of the entire Oxford outfit, had a mixed competition. Although disappointed not to qualify for the Long Jump, Smithson jumped well in her preferred event, the Triple Jump. She finished fifth overall with a jump of 11.
8 metres, well into the Blues standard and showing signs of getting back to the excellent form she was in last term, where she was jumping over 11.70 metres. Gourley finished fifth in the Pole Vault competition and cleared 4.20 metres • close to his season’s best set indoors last term. He then went on to finish seventh in the Long Jump with a 6.81-metre showing, again just short of his season’s peak length. Harding also continued his good track form in the field events, throwing 44.
5 metres in the Javelin competition and finishing twelfth overall. However the individual felt, all of these performances helped Oxford to secure their overall team positions, finishing ahead of Cambridge in both, which bodes well for the up-and-coming Varsity match. Oxford men finished eighth in the final standings, and the women went one better with an overall seventh-placed finish. This was no bad result given that five universities ahead receive lottery funding.
Bomb says she is proud of all her athletes, and special mention must go to those athletes who didn’t make the finals, particularly Dave Woods (800 metres; 1.56.3) who showed tremendous promise, Danny Eckersley (a season’s best in the 400- metre hurdles with 57.09) and Phil Duggleby, who continues to come back well from injury, running a season’s best of 50.9 in the same event.
4th May 2006