UK U23/U20/U17 2023 Outdoor Results

[Occasional Hope]

Can I suggest Kara Dacosta is another one to watch out for, although perhaps she needs to find the right event. She's an u17, and currently our top girl in that age group at 300 (and won the England u17 indoor title), no. 2 at 300 hurdles (and has just run her first 400 hurdles), and =4 HJ.

[jjimbojames]

I think she’s best off sticking to the flat - her sprint hurdling hasn’t made progress and I think her end of year ranking will see her much higher on the flat.

Arabella Wilson is a good comparison - about the same 300m time, but way quicker over the hurdles. If she doesn’t spend all season chasing the 400mH, she may well break the British record in the 300mH

[Paps]

Can I suggest Kara Dacosta is another one to watch out for, although perhaps she needs to find the right event. She's an u17, and currently our top girl in that age group at 300 (and won the England u17 indoor title), no. 2 at 300 hurdles (and has just run her first 400 hurdles), and =4 HJ.

probably shouldn’t read too much into 300H rankings in March.

Her flat times are very impressive, but her hurdling needs a lot of work to be comparable. Long hurdles is an event with a tough learning curve though, and she could carve chunks off once it clicks.

[RunUnlimited]

According to the European Athletics website, Keely Hodgkinson will be competing at the European U23 Champs in Espoo between July 13 -16th, but she'll be dropping down in distance to the 400m rather than her favoured 800m. https://www.european-athletics.com/n...-championships

Could Keely medal there? And how fast will she go? Sub 52 seconds and a new lifetime best seems like a safe enough bet, but could she get close to, or even go under 51 seconds too? It'll be interesting to see certainly.

Looking at last season's European 400m rankings in the U23 age group, of the top 10 performers, only a couple of them are still eligible for the age category (Rhasidat Adeleke and British teammate Yemi Mary John) while the rest, which includes sub 50 performer Femke Bol, and sub 51 sec athlete Polina Miller, were born in 2000 so can't compete. (Or in the case of Miller, being a Russian, she couldn't be in Espoo regardless due to the ban on her countries athletes with the continued war in Ukraine)

[Occasional Hope]

Crazy to think she's still an u23 given what she's achieved in her career already.

In theory she still has to get selected of course. Yemi Mary John will presumably also be going so that might only eave one spot at the trials.

[RunUnlimited]

I still remember watching her win 800m gold at the 2018 European U18's in Gyor, beating everybody else in the field imperiously, as a 16 year old. But little did I suspect just how special an athlete she would turn out to be over the following 5 years.

[jjimbojames]

She’s clearly been working on her speed, and I doubt she’d bother with the taper etc just for a few 400m runouts, so she / Trevor must believe she can at least medal. Depends who turns up (and their fitness/other goals, when it comes to the US college-based athletes) but last time round, 52.0 won a bronze.

[CAML]

From what I saw of KH indoors, her conditioning seems to have improved. She looks like she has a decent 1500 in her.

[RunUnlimited]

She’s clearly been working on her speed, and I doubt she’d bother with the taper etc just for a few 400m runouts, so she / Trevor must believe she can at least medal. Depends who turns up (and their fitness/other goals, when it comes to the US college-based athletes) but last time round, 52.0 won a bronze.

Yeah, out of the serious contenders for the podium, Adeleke and Yemi Mary John, it's going to be down to how fit/tired they will be with such a busy NCAA schedule to follow.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that Adeleke will give these champs a miss to focus on the Worlds in Budapest, while Yemi Mary John is more likely to have this as part of her plans though. But if they *both* don't make to Espoo, then I think Keely has an excellent chance to win the gold, based on who the competition would be as a result.

[RunUnlimited]

Rebecca Grieve, a member of the gold meal winning European U18 medley relay squad last year in Jerusalem, opened her outdoor season with a 55.54 in the Bobcat Invitational, San Marco, Texas, the 18 year old running for New Mexico University having enrolled there last Autumn.

Another very promising young athlete making her 2023 outdoor debut in the last couple of day was European U18 400mH bronze medallist Stephanie Okoro. The British age-16 best record holder over the 400m hurdles when winning that medal behind team mate Ophelia Pye's golden run, Okoro has already set PBs over 60m and the 400m flat indoors in February and on April 2, she clocked 43.00 in the 300mH at the Havering AC Spring Warm Up Open, held in Hornchurch (only a couple of miles away from where I live btw). Still just 16, this is her fastest opener to a season yet (at the same meeting last year, Okoro ran 43.93) and suggests that she has plenty more to shave off in the coming weeks ahead.

[Occasional Hope]

Incidentally they need a new host for the 2024 u20 worlds, as Peru has had to pull out.

[RunUnlimited]

Incidentally they need a new host for the 2024 u20 worlds, as Peru has had to pull out.

Yeah, was coming on here to report it myself after seeing the AW Twitter page. So that's two U20 champs that have had to change venue in the last six months or so. The European U20s were supposed to be in Romania this year, but the hosts pulled out and Jerusalem came in as a replacement after doing such a good job with the Euro U18's in 2022. Hopefully an alternate venue can be found for the World U20s in fairly short order too.

[RunUnlimited]

Well I have a suggestion for World Athletics of a suitable alternative venue.... the recently refurbished Alexander Stadium would be perfect for this. And especially since GB have never hosted a World U20s (or European U20s for that matter) before then I think it's time to end this drought.

[CAML]

EJ's Birmingham 1987. Backley, Jarrett and Jamie Henderson ran 10.21 at 18. GB have had a lot of EJ champions at 100m, but Henderson looked sensational there, yet that proved to be it for him.

[RunUnlimited]

Ah, so it's "only" been the 36 years gap since the UK's held a continental junior championships, rather than never. A small difference.

And as for Jamie Henderson, very much a case of what might have been. His 10.21 still ranks 6th fastest all time for UK U20s and =15th on the European U20 all time list. He also was part of the 4x100m squad that won gold and he added a 200m bronze at that same EJ's too.
But after 1987 according to his Po10 page, Henderson didn't compete again until 1990 where he made the semi finals of the Auckland CWGs as an U23. Then there is another 4 years gap before he emerged again in 1994 for the CWG in Victoria, where he went out in the quarter final stage. Heck, trying to find his results is pretty hard going as on both the European and World Athletics websites, they only register Henderson's results up to 1988!

So I'm going to hazard a guess that repeated injury issues accounted for his sparse appearances after 1987 and him ultimately throwing in the towel before he was 26 years old. A shame.

[RunUnlimited]

Seren Rodgers, who finished 7th at last year's European U18s in the heptathlon, got her outdoor campaign off to a good start on day 1 of the Yeovil Spring Open. The 18 year old ran a PB of 14.42 (-0.4 m/s) in 100m hurdles, an improvement of 3/10ths from 2022. She then followed that up with a outdoor best in the shot put of 10.47m (though she has thrown 10.71m indoors in February). Rodgers is down to compete in the long jump and the 100m today too, so when those results come in, I'll put them them here.

(Also, just something I've noticed but competing with Seren Rodgers in this event is an U17 called Nia Rodgers. Nia, like Seren, also runs for Taunton A.C and now I'm starting to wonder if this is a bit of a family gathering in Yeovil. )

Seren Rodgers would jump 5.92m (+1.8 m/s) in the LJ, equalling her PB from 2022, and run 12.50 in the 100m, which was another PB despite running into a stiff -2.5 m/s headwind, suggesting that with more favourable wind conditions she could get close to or under 12 seconds.

[RunUnlimited]

From the UK 2023 Outdoor results thread, I'll included these results as that all are from athletes who are U23s or U20's currently.


Kenneth Ikeji won the hammer yesterday at the Harvard/Yale vs Oxford/Cambridge meeting with 69.67m for Harvard, his 2nd best ever mark with the senior implement.

Daniel Falode, 20 and also representing Harvard, won the triple jump contest with a windy 15.80m (+2.8 m/s) in his first appearance outdoors this season. He had two wind legal jumps of 15.21m in rounds 1 and 6.

Michael Allison, who turns 19 in May and last year made the World U20 javelin final, won the javelin competition here with a best of 64.68m. It was a little down on the 70.45m effort he achieved in Loughborough back in February, a distance that still ranks him 6th among U20 athletes currently.

[MysteryBrick]

70.17m for Michael Allison in Ithaca, New York today.

[Loop-guru]

Yemi Mary John improved her best performance of the season winning in a time 51.77 at the Trojan Invitational in Los Angeles on the 8th. She has only ran quicker than that twice. Last year in the World U20 semi 51.72 and then in the final itself 51.5

[RunUnlimited]

Yemi Mary John improved her best performance of the season winning in a time 51.77 at the Trojan Invitational in Los Angeles on the 8th. She has only ran quicker than that twice. Last year in the World U20 semi 51.72 and then in the final itself 51.5

At the same event, Temi Ojora set a new triple jump PB with a winning distance of 13.66m (+1.6 m/s), that means she has gone beyond the Q standard for the European U23s in the summer. Good stuff!

[Occasional Hope]

13.66 pb for Temi Ojora as her promising early season continues.