SAM SPEARHEADS A GOLDEN WEEKEND

Sam Imhogiemhe triggered a golden county championship weekend for Trackspeed1-UK as he stormed to the Essex 100 metre title in one of the most spectacular lifetime best performances ever recorded!

Newly crowned Essex County 100m Champion Sam Imhogiemhe
is rightly all smiles after a massive personal best 10.74s sprint.

The 21-year-old sprints hopeful joined the squad last year as a modest 11.5 second athlete, and put down a decent 60m pb indoors during the winter months.  Saturday, however, saw him enter a new stratosphere with a phenomenal 10.74s win to clinch gold and wipe almost a second off his previous fastest time.

Yet more impressive though was the fact that he had been hospitalised after a car crash less than 2 weeks earlier and hadn't been able to train at all before his Essex outing!

It was the first of a clutch of medals for Trackspeed1-UK athletes competing in six different county championships.  Piers Chen took off to a nightmare start in the Oxfordshire 100m final, but recovered to run the second fastest time of his life to take gold.

In Middlesex, Niclas Baker started the 400m as hot favourite after his huge personal best 47.4s a week earlier, and duly obliged with a solo run that clocked 47.91 in the final.

Niclas Baker ran solo for the most part of the Middlesex 400m final,
which he won at a canter in 47.91s.

Three more medalist performances were to come over the weekend, with Ishmael Smith-John taking bronze in the Kent 100m final, and Oweka Wanogho clinching another bronze medalist in the Surrey 200m, albeit with a surprisingly below-par time.

Overall it was another series of outstandingly positive performances for the Crystal Palace-based squad, although the weekend ended with some concerns over injuries that hit no fewer than three of the group.

Niclas Baker fell on the stairs at home and twisted an ankle, Oweka Wanogho pulled up with a groin problem in the Surrey 100m heats after a scintillating first 40 metres, and then Yomi Adeyemi fell at the line in his Surrey 100m heat sustaining a suspected broken shoulder!

"The injuries were phenomenally frustrating," said coach John Powell, who visited the Middlesex meeting on Saturday and Surreys on Sunday.  "Oweka looked terrific out of the blocks in the 100m, but he was absolutely right to pull up when he felt a sharp pain in his groin.

"The situation with Niclas was a bit bizarre and he will need treatment this week.  What makes things worse is that Oweka and Niclas had been selected to compete in the Loughborough International next Sunday (22nd) and they now have to be real doubts.

"At this stage of the season though, you simply can't take any risks, and if they're not fit then they don't run.  There is far too much lying ahead for them to compromise the summer now.  By and large we have started really well this year and everyone is in the form of their lives, so we need to manage any hiccups like this shrewdly."

Oweka Wanogho exits the Surrey 100m as he pulls
up in the heats with what turned out to be
a very slight groin strain

It wasn't only medalist performances that impressed at the weekend though.  The squad produced five other sprints finalists, and in most cases performances were better than or at least very close to lifetime bests.  The 2016 season moves no next weekend  to the Loughborough International with David Bolarinwa, Niclas Baker, and Dean Hylton in action, with Sam Imhogiemhe waiting in the wings to see if he can grab an eleventh hour lane.

Others will be in action at the Blackheath and Bromley Open meeting on Monday 23rd, with the cancellation of this year's Bedford International Games leaving the bank holiday weekend a potential training weekend as things stand.