North Yorkshire Open Meeting
English Institute of Sport – Sheffield, 15th December 2019
A small group from Kingston upon Hull AC took the opportunity to round off their competitive year when travelling to Sheffield’s world class indoor facility at the English Institute of Sport where North Yorkshire Athletics Association staged their annual December Open Meeting. With the Northern Indoor Championships looming large early in 2020 this event proved invaluable as part of the athletes’ preparation – especially for those competing on the banked 200m track and having to learn how to negotiate the tight bends and short straights.
Busiest athlete of the day was Adam Coles, a regular performer on the indoor circuit over the last few years. Adam opened up with 2nd place in the senior long jump behind his term time training partner Alex Colton (Leeds City) with an indoor season’s best of 6.14m before moving onto the track to win the under 20 60m hurdles in 8.9 seconds. To complete a busy day Adam returned to the sand pit to collect another indoor season’s best of 12.38m to win the senior triple jump.
Fresh from a personal best over 600m at the same venue a week earlier 17 year old Jodie Martin started her day with a win in the ladies 200m – her first attempt at the event indoors – clocking 26.8 seconds in the process. Only 30 minutes later Jodie was in her blocks for her debut over 400m. Tracking former England Athletics under 15 300m champion Tia Anderson (Durham City Harriers) round the first lap Jodie used her 800m strength to close her north eastern rival down before taking the lead on the final bend, stopping the clock at 58.1 seconds, placing her 4th on the Yorkshire & Humberside under 20 rankings for 2019.
Daisy Logan returned to indoor competition after missing the whole of last winter’s campaign through injury. Daisy, who represented Humberside in the sprint relay at this year’s English Schools Championships, showed that she is getting back to her best by placing 3rd in the under 17 60m in 8.2 seconds, only 0.07 outside her lifetime best. Daisy also took on the challenge posed by the tight banked bends of the 200m event again picking up 3rd place clocking a highly satisfactory 27.3 seconds.
One of Daisy’s training partners Amelia Proctor, another member of the Humberside relay squad from the English School’s Championships made her first ever indoor appearance at Sheffield. Dropping down from her favoured 300m distance Amelia also contested the 200m where she finished 5th in 27.6 seconds, the race proving to be valuable experience before January’s Northern Championships. Having only taken up triple jump a matter of weeks ago Amelia took the opportunity to test herself competitively and despite struggling with the accuracy of her run up she made a winning start to her jumping career setting a distance of 9.31 metres.
