Indoor Round Up - February

Loughborough Open
January 15th/16th saw the Loughborough Open where Lily Holt, competing for Birmingham University, got her season going.
 
Lily ran two 60m hurdles races on the 15th in 9.42. and 9.49 and on the 16th had a perfect high jump card up to 1.66m, but just couldn’t get over 1.70m
  
London Indoor Games
The London Indoor Games for U13/U15/U17 took place on Jan 29th/30th with several Chiltern athletes in action. In 60m debutant Florence Owen (U15) ran 9.84 and 9.93. In 300m U15s Elizabeth Nickless (50.54) and Leila Pollard (53.39) both ran PBs. U17 John Nickless improved his 400m PB to an impressive 53.85.
In 800m Oakley Denson continued his busy indoor season with and 800m in 1.59.75 whilst fellow U17 Felix Palmer ran 2.17.34. There were PBs for U15s for Ffion Harman (2.39.44) and Florence Lee-Rubis (2.38.51). U17s Chisom Nwafor and Gabi Riley tackled 60m hurdles with Chisom running 8.84 (PB) and 8.92 and Gabi 10.22.
 
EA U15/U17/U20 Championships
The high point of the indoor season for age group athletes, the England Athletics U15/U17/U20 Championships, took place at the English Institute of Sport, Sheffield on the weekend of 12th/13th February.
 
The highlight was a gold medal for Chisom Nwafor in the U17 Women’s Long Jump. In a close battle Chisom prevailed with a  jump of 5.71m, just ahead of jumps of 5.65m and 5.60m in second and third.
 
There were three U17 men taking part in 800m. In Heat 2 Isaac Jessop-Tranter battled hard for second place in 2.04.88 but was down on his best time from last month and did not progress to the final. Going into the championships, Oakley Denson was ranked top 3 in the country and looked a good bet for a medal. Oakley looked good winning Heat 3 but was very unfortunate to be disqualified for a lane infringement and took no further part. In Heat 4 John Nickless led the race at a good pace but was overhauled in the second half of the race and was third, just missing out on the final. His strong pace did, however, result in a new PB of 1.59.98, John’s first time below two minutes