2:40pm Thursday 4th March 2010
TWO of Enfield & Haringey AC’s brightest sprint stars returned from the national indoor championships with gold medals in their kit bags last weekend.
Desiree Henry tore the W17 200 final apart at the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham, and Jordan Huggins dominated the M20 60m races.
Desiree, not 15 until 26th August, is the youngest of the 76 athletes listed in the UKA W17 rankings but she made her intentions clear in the opening round by winning her heat in 24.45 - a time only she amongst under-17 women has beaten this year. That however hardly prepared the spectators for what they witnessed in the final.
Despite her swift heat time Desiree was drawn in the outside lane but that made no difference, she did not need to see her opposition and, indeed, the only time Desiree did see them was as they rushed over to congratulate her when the winning time was announced. Breaking the electronic beam in 23.93 seconds, Desiree had improved her personal best – indoors and out - by a quarter of a second, set a new Championship best and run the fourth best indoor time ever in this age group.
Jordan Huggins as befitted the leading UK U20 60 metre competitor strolled through his heat in 7.00 seconds and picked up the pace in the semi-finals – winning his heat in 6.74.
The final went to the form book and Huggins streaked down the centre straight to take the gold in 6.73 seconds.
Impressively, two other EHAC runners were also in the final; Jordan Arthur was sixth in 6.99 (after recording 6.97 in the semi-finals) and Reece Noonan was seventh in 7.00. Noonan too was faster in the semis with his 6.99. There is surely a class relay team from EHAC waiting in the wings for this summer.
Misfortune struck Bianca Williams who won her heat of the W17 60 metres in 7.71 seconds but in doing so suffered a hamstring pull which may keep her out of action for three weeks. Bianca’s time proved to be the fastest of the heats and was eventually only beaten in the final by the winner.
Club mate Uzoma Nwahukwu finished 5th in the final with 7.93 after recording 7.80 in winning her heat.
Romaine Harris was in consistent form in the Men’s U17 60 metres. Running 7.11 in the heats, 7.11 again in the semi-finals and then 7.12 for sixth in the final.
Charlotte Rose took fourth place in the W20 shot with a 12.78m effort and Joe Sherry was once again close to 2 minutes in the M17 800m where he too took the dreaded fourth spot in 2:00.76.
* Ben Nagy improved three places from 2009 in the National CC Championships at Leeds’ Roundhay Park on Saturday, coming home in 15th place after being as high as seventh on the second of the three lap 10km race.
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