Richard Davenport was in superb form

Davenport double as Beagles earn a British League third place again

Thursday, July 12, 2012
11:03 AM

Newham & Essex Beagles battled to third place in the second British Athletics League match of the season despite going to Copthall Stadium with a depleted squad.

Richard Davenport proved to be the star of the show for the Beagles as he grabbed two victories on the day.

First he stormed to an impressive win in the 400m hurdles where his time of 50.37 seconds was over a second faster than his nearest rival.

But he then followed it up with victory in the flat 400m B race where he also collected maximum points with a run of 46.92 which would have placed him second in the A race.

There were some other good wins on the day, not least, Chris Tomlinson in the high jump, who was competing just three days before the confirmation of his Olympic place.

Tomlinson’s leap of 7.94 metres was 50cms clear of second place and proved to be one of three field victories for the Beagles on the day.

The others saw another Olympic bound athlete in Abdul Buhari claim victory in the discus with a throw of 65.24m, though that was somewhat tempered by the fact that the Beagles did not have a participant in the B event, while Matthew Devereux stormed the pole vault with 5.20m.

Back on the track there were three other excellent victories for the Beagles.

Rabah Yousif clocked 46.58 in the 400m to make it an A and B double in the event, while Alex Al-Ameen dipped to a narrow victory in the 100m hurdles.

David Bolarinwa took the B 100m in a time of 10.68 to complete the victories, though Mark Findlay will count himself unlucky after being pipped into second place in the A 100m, before both he and Bolarinwa were in the sprint relay team that was disqualified.

Other Beagles in form included Sam Farah, who was second in the 3,000m, Amir Williamson was second in the B hammer and Greg Beard was runner-up in the shot with a throw of 17.90m

Shaftesbury Harriers followed up their second place in the opening match by winning the second match with Manchester a surprise second after they had only finished sixth of eight in the opening encounter.

Newham have finished third in both matches and sit third overall with the third of the four matches scheduled for Saturday, July 28.