Imperial stay on track in LUCA Athletics League
A badly scheduled athletics calendar meant the second meet in the London Universities and Colleges Athletics (LUCA) Outdoors League fell on 20th April - Easter Saturday.
Expectations of a severely depleted squad failed to materialise, however, with 9 stoic athletes still keen to compete at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre.
The day began on the field with hammer throw and long jump taking centre stage. Super milti-eventer Maryna Voloshyna took on hammer throw in her first event of six and achieved a mighty second place.
In the long jump, scholarship athlete Idan Gal-Shohet took a comfortable victory with a giant leap of 6.5m in an outdoors season’s best.
Over on the track, after victories in both the 800m and 1500m at the first fixture at Parliament Hill, James Millett took victory once more in the 800m, beating the time he set at Parliament Hill by half a second to run 1:59.05.
In the women’s 100 metres, long-jump specialist Sarah Abrams ran a speedy 12.55 to place second.
The match was also host to the annual LUCA “multi-event challenge”, in which athletes get a taste for multi-event sport by competiting in a selection of decathlon and heptathlon events for men and women respectively; a sprint race, a middle distance race, a jump and a throw.
Imperial were represented in this competition by Athletics Captain Jack Mitchell and club favourite Maryna Voloshyna.
In the men’s competition Mitchell competed in the shot, high jump, 100m, and 1500m, eventually scoring 1630 points to finish a respectable 4th place.
In the women’s, Maryna took on the shot, high jump, 200m and 800m - as well as the hammer throw and 2km steeplechase - finishing with 1304 and securing the bronze medal!
In the final individual event of the day - the 1500m - Imperial had 3 contenders in the men’s race. Fresh off his 800m victory James Millett was eyeing his fourth win of the series but after leading in the early stages could not hold on to beat Euan Campbell from St Mary’s, finishing under 2 seconds behind the leader in 4:06.9 to place second.
Daniel Garcia made up the top three with a 3rd place finish in a personal best time of 4:24.0, and multi-eventer Jack Mitchell finishing in 6th to complete his four-event effort.
With one fixture remaining in the series - Battersea Park on the 25th May - Imperial sit 5th in the overall standings with a comfortable lead over 6th-placed LSE. The club is hoping for a big attendance to give the team a chance of overtaking the reigning champtions King’s who go into the match with a slim 19 point lead over Imperial’s 116.
In the individual MVP rankings, middle distance specialist James Millett lies in joint-5th following his 3 wins out of 4 in the 800m and 1500m.
The final match promises to be hotly contested with medals decided in almost all the individual events and very few points seperating the field.
