Woodford Athletics Club won the Jo Smith trophy, last weekend.

Competing at Barnet’s Copthall Stadium, on a day when all teams were some way below full strength, team managers Gladys Bird and Keith Hopson oversaw a fine team performance which included six personal bests.

Woodford scored 227 points, ahead of Sale on 215, Newham 213, Birchfield 201, Enfield and Haringey 159, Windsor SE&H, 139, Trafford 132, and Shaftesbury Barnet 131.

The first of those personal bests came from Ruth Brereton who, in placing second in the 400m, went under 60s for the first time with 59.90s.

Ruth later also ran in a high quality flat 400m where another personal best of 56.48s placed her sixth. In the women’s 800m, Junior Kathrine Foy was delighted to take close to two seconds from her personal best as she recorded 2m 12.79 secs for fifth.

Also securing a personal best was Kristina Blackett, who competed over 200m and took a margin of 0.6s off her previous best to record 25.17s for fifth.

The next personal best was by Diana Kennedy in the 2000m steeplechase where she took 16 seconds off her last top time to finish second in 7m 20.74s.

With some improvement in her barrier approach, Diana is capable of going significantly faster again.

As is often the case the foundations to Woodford’s team performances were laid in the field events.

In the men’s discus and shot Emeka Udechuku picked up two second places with 55.26m and 17.30m respectively.

In the women’s, Hollie Redman was fourth in the discus with 38.79m and Jo Duncan produced her best effort of the season to place 2nd in the shot with a fine 15.81m.

In the hammer events Andy Frost led the men’s event until the last round, but just lost out to the Sale athlete as his 67.86m placed second, while Sarah Smith was 4th in the women’s event with 46.47m.

In the javelin, Simon Bennett produced his best throw since the Cup Final 3 years ago, with an effort of 64.90m for 3rd, with Emma Smith also 3rd in the women’s event with 43.86m.

In the triple jump there was victory for Tosin Oke who, fine tuning his technique ahead of representing Nigeria at the forthcoming Berlin World Championships, used a short approach to record 15.80m for a comfortable victory.

In the women’s event Stephanie Aneto’s 12.89m won her second.

In the long jump Ezekiel Ewulo was also second with 7.28m whilst, in the women’s event and lacking more experienced athletes, Rachel Dean stepped in and gained valuable points with 4.94m in 8th.

The high jump saw Ayamba Akim 2nd with 1.75m, and Gareth Dyball recorded a season’s best of 1.95m for fifth.

The pole vault saw Christian North clear 4.90m for second whilst, in the women’s event, Maria Seeger, who is coached by Christian, cleared a fine 4.00m, also for second.

On the track, European junior bronze medallist Eugene Ayanful placed 3rd over 100m in a good field with 10.59s, with Azaria Francis 5th in the women’s race with 12.27s.

In the men’s 200m, Tim Abeyie just lost out in the final 20m as he clocked 21.23s for second.

Graham Hedman, having drawn the unfavourable outside lane in the 400m, also just lost out in the closing stages as he recorded 46.49 secs for second.

In the 110m hurdles, Callum Priestley continued his fine run of form with a winning time of 13.81s.

In the women’s event, Holly Pattie-Belleli stepped up to senior action and placed a creditable fourth with 16.74s and in the men’s 400m hurdles, Francis Smith was fifth in 54.03s.

In the middle distance events, Omar Mansour was sixth in a good field, recording 1m 54.4s in the 800m.

Meanwhile, in the 1500m, 17 year old Alex Cornwell acquitted himself very well against older and faster athletes in a tactical race which saw him place 4th with 3m 57.52s.

In the women’s event it was pleasing to see Linzi Snow back in club action.

Still way short of full fitness she still picked up good points with 4m37.3 secs for fourth.

The men’s steeplechase saw Jon Long go under 10 minutes for the first time this year as he placed 4th in 9m 56s.

In the 4x400m, the women’s team of Kathrine Foy, Kristina Blackett, Holly Pattie-Belleli and Linzi Snow were fifth in 4m 06.33s.

The men, with Jamie Wright (49.7), Francis Smith (49.9), Eugene Ayanful (49.5) and Graham Hedman (45.9) were fourth in 3m 15s.