Sixth Spence Good Value

The English Institute of Sport (EIS) in Sheffield was home to hundreds of talented athletes all looking to take home a coveted title at the 2011 BUCS Indoor Athletic Championships.

Amongst the competitors was a young Northumbria side looking to make its mark against the big Universities.

And the Poly didn’t disappoint with Laura Spence producing a gutsy performance, finishing an incredible sixth in the women’s 3000m final.

Spence, who had beaten the entire Newcastle team at BUCS Cross Country two weeks earlier, showed why she is Northumbria’s number one, beating her Newcastle counterpart by two places.

After the race head coach Sam Stanislaus said: “Laura has been training really hard over the winter and it’s paid off. 

“We’ve worked hard on her strength and conditioning which is something she struggled with last year.

“Going off this performance she has the potential to win a medal in the BUCS outdoors competition.”

Elsewhere, in the women’s high jump, Hannah Dickson narrowly missed out on a place in the final, after her jump of 1.60m fell one place short of the qualifying mark.

In the men’s events, Stanislaus showed that he’s lost none of his form finishing a respectable eighth in the men’s triple jump final.

Stanislaus, who is also the Poly’s head coach, had only restarted training last week.

Despite this he managed to produce a big jump of 13.93m in the last round to gain a valuable BUCS point for the University.

“I was pleased with the way I jumped today, considering I’ve only just restarted training," added Stanislaus

“I felt totally drained going into the last jump so I was surprised when I had jumped so far.”

In other events Andy Young narrowly missed out on a place in the men’s 800m semi-final after setting a new personal best of 1.58.55.

There was agony again in the men’s long jump as James Andrew missed out on the final by one place.

“Overall, everyone did really well," added Stanislaus.

“There were some great individual efforts and we were unlucky to not have more athletes in finals.

“We have a young team, made up mostly from freshers so the future looks promising.”

The Athletics team now set their sights on this year's Stan Calvert, where they will be looking to make it two wins in a row over the Posh kids.

PHILLIP MOORE

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