Oxford City juniors beat Team Southampton & win first athletics match of the season

Oxford City’s young athletes got off to a winning start in the Wessex League, against strong rivals including Team Southampton, Basingstoke and Camberley. With many athletes competing for the first time or in an older age group,the early season nerves and rustiness was quickly shaken off.

The boys team rapidly hitting its stride to record 21 first places and 42 personal bests. U17 star Marcus Woodington stormed to victory in the 100m hurdles in 13.8s, while Andrew Busby and Mark Warland took first places in the A and B long jump, both with PBs. Not to be outdone, Gift McLaren won the A string 100 and 200m, was second in the A 400m and anchored the u17 4 x 100m relay team in a scorching time of 46.80.  Other notable results were 1st places for Tom Downs in the B string 100m and javelin, 1st place in the B string 200m for Ifeanyi Echeta and a 2nd place and new PB for Mark Warland in the discus. A very young u15 side held its own, with James O’Callaghan winning the A string 400m and Matthieu Marshall and Josh Tack dominating the 1500m to win both A and B strings. In the field events Tom Anstice won the A string javelin in his first year in this age group, and was ably supported in the field by Alex Cooper, Max Tavinor and Josh Tack. The u13s had fewer victories, Nirushan Parameswaran in the B 200m and Finn Johnson-Ward in the B string shot being the only winners, but there is more to come from an inexperienced group of athletes, and in Adam Smith and Ben Daniels they possess two determined and talented all-rounders.

The girls team spirit was excellent with a fabulous win by the U17's with notable performances from Rebecca Byren with PB's in1500, 100m and 300 and Zoe Webber with PB's in 200m and 100m. The U15's had a smaller team so had to work harder but managed some great times with Amy Busby running a fabulous 200m in a PB of 26.7. Storm Sunderland was ahead all the way in her 1200m race and will be a force to be reckoned with for the rest of the season.Flora Loake-800m and Jess Daniels - Shot also scored PB's.
 The enthusiasm of the U13s was written all over their faces and they well deserved their 2nd place only 2 points behind the winners, Basingstoke.  Simi Fajemisin jumped an incredible 4.40 in the long jump and ran a PB in the 100m.Charlotte Smith ran a PB in the hurdles and a special mention must go Charlotte Stafford and Jessica Scurr who ran excellent 800ms for their first attempts. 

The under 11's were also competing in their own quadkids competition and showed
that they could match their older team mates by finishing a very creditable 2nd  behind Camberley.  Ellie Millington was the top scoring girl overall with Kitty Vaughan-Fowler 3rd and Olivia Strickland 6th  with Olivia being 2nd overall in the 75m. George King-Thompson was the highest placed boy in 5th place. Well done to all the under 11's especially those competing for the first time.