Ilford Juniors Press Report. 2nd April 2018  

WOODFORD GREEN OPEN MEETING
Saturday 31st March 2018

A number of Ilford youngsters opened their 2018 track season at a normal wet and windy Woodford open meeting.

First up was our only u11 competitor , Aaron Hick ,competing against a large amount of Woodford youngsters.
Aaron came third in his first ever long jump in a very good distance of 3 meters 27
He then did the 600 and was narrowly beaten by 2 Woodford kids ,but ran 2 11 for a big personal best and finally came 3rd in the 75m.

Ilford had 6 athletes in the 800m and all of them smashed their pbs
First up was Matthew Hick who won the first 800m race in 2 32
Newcomer Ryan Holeyman ,in his first ever track race came second in 2 38
Next up was Bradley Deacon ,who came second but broke his personal best by over 15 seconds to run 2 17

The final 800m was a great race for the Ilford youngsters
Aaron Samuels went off very quick to go through the first lap in 58 ,with Farris Patel very close and Jak Wright a few seconds back. At 600 Aaron still had quite a large lead but Farris found some effort and speed down the final straight and passed Aaron and break the magical 2 minute barrier.
Farris,injured last summer ,ran a personal best by 10 seconds and shows his real potential
Aaron in second still ran a great race and also ran his fastest by 4 seconds in 2.00.07
Backing up the front 2 was Jak ,who also ran 2.09 ,which once again was his fastest ever by a large amount

Ilford also had a number of sprinters out on Saturday
First up was Ayshe Lawrence who broke the 30 second barrier in the 200 for the first time with 29.65
In the next heat Ilford had 3 young girls competing
Ellie Wright won in a very good time of 27.39, followed by Jasmin Martins in 28.31 and Esmeralda Mengeyele in 28.86.
In the 400m Eshimu Massamba ran a pb of 61:36 to finish 2nd.

In the men’s 100 Mario Dobrescu won the 100m in a person best of 11.55 and shows how well his winters training has gone
Backing him up Daniel Popoola ran 11.87 for third and Jordan Akinpelu was 5th in 12.25
Jordan won his 200m race in 24.95 and Daniel won his race in 24.49
Mario came back for the men’s 300 and ran a spectacular time of 35.83 for an u15 athlete