A few weekends ago, the University of Exeter Athletics Club headed to Manchester for the BUCS Outdoor Championships 2025! Here’s my belated report on the performance of the sprinters and horizontal jumpers.

The 2024-25 season has been much better organised that the previous year. This is not a criticism of the previous season because it was a year of transition with new coaches and a new approach. This year we’ve been better prepared with fewer mistakes and more athletes being given the opportunity to compete at BUCS. I anticipated that it would be a much trickier year due to the loss of lots of experienced athletes. In particularly, I have been delighted with the first year female sprinters who have joined the club, two of whom are completely new to athletics outside of school.

The sprinters and jumpers who attended BUCS Outdoors did so with a great attitude. It was a great pity that the conditions were not conducive to personal best performances with most of the athletes unlikely to compete for semi-final places. There was a gusty headwind throughout the weekend that affected the sprinters and jumpers. The wind even felt like it was whistling around the 200m bend too! Nonetheless, here’s the full low-down:

Men’s 100m

Charlie Eisinger - 12.06 (-3.7) – It was fantastic to see Charlie really enjoying his first major competition. If it wasn’t for admin mistakes last year, he would have competed. He had a smile on his face the whole weekend.

Adeyinka Thomas - 12.10 (-1.7) – This was Ade’s first major competition. He got a blistering start but needs to work hard on his speed endurance. It’s his first year of athletics, and before Christmas his fitness left a lot to be desired. There’s huge room for improvement.

Women’s 100m

Lucy Moore - 14.87 (-4.9) – Lucy had a terrible wind in her race, and you could almost see it knocking her back when she came out of her transition. A week later, she ran her fastest ever electric time, so this wasn’t representative of her form.

Mary-Elizabeth Asse - 13.91 (-2.9) – Mary ran well too despite being ill the week before. This is her first year of athletics and with a good winter next year, she’ll hopefully be flying next year. She has all the attributes of a good sprinter.

Men’s 200m

Lawrie Van de Grift - 22.84 (-2.2) – Lawrie is one of the discoveries of the year. Again, he’s only just picked up the sport. He ran a cracking time and with a bit more work on his starts, he would have qualified for a semi-final. It’s worth noting that Lawrie is actually coached by Rob Grew at the Uni because he’s primarily a 400m runner.

Vladislav Levchenko - 22.73 (-1.2) & 22.79 (-1.8) – Last year, Vlad was disqualified at Indoors and had a dreadful time at Outdoors, running nowhere near his potential. It was fantastic to see him qualify for the semi-final this year and run two solid races. He’s undoubtedly got more in his tank, and should really being running very low 22s, but we’ll assess what needs to change in the weeks running up to BUCS Outdoors to make sure he’s sharper next year.

Women’s 200m

Ayomide Cole - 26.57 (-3.3) – Ayo is as reliable as ever, and a super valuable team member due to her vast experience of competing. She’s a great person for the newbies to have around them.

Georgia Hill - 28.46 (0.1) – Another of our breakthrough athletes this year. Only in the first year, with no proper experience of athletics outside of school, Georgia has been running really well. She should have attended Indoors, but didn’t have a qualifying performance due to being so new to the sport. She was a little off her best, lacking a bit of speed endurance in the final 50ms. This is probably due to difficulty training over the Easter break. If she keeps competing this summer, she can run mid to low 27s.

Men’s Long Jump
Maurice Sainsbury - 5.08 (-1.5) – Maurice had a howler of a day and just wasn’t himself. He was almost falling asleep on the runway, probably the result of being up early driving everyone to Manchester. He did, however, show his form a week later with a PB in the long jump.

Women’s Long Jump
Zoe Hall - 4.40 (-1.9) – A solid performance from our Kiwi athlete. Zoe was with us for only a few months, and it was a pleasure to have her competing. She seemed to enjoy the atmosphere and being in the shadow of the Emirates Stadium.

Amelia Heasley - 4.19 (-1.7) – Amelia is another of our newbies to athletics. It was great to see her having fun and feeling more confident in the competition atmosphere. There is a tendency for athletes like Amelia to rush their jumps because they feel self-conscious.

Men’s Triple Jump

Will Mallen - 13.31 (-1.3) – A very good performance in the conditions, bettered by 30cms a week later in much better conditions. This has been a much more enjoyable season for Bill, who was unable to compete at BUCS Indoors or Outdoors last year for various reasons (often not his fault!).

Men’s Pole Vault

George Mackenzie - 3.56 – It was great to see George clearing a height. He hasn’t had much structure of consistency with his training due to Exeter being far from a hotbed of pole vaulting! Hopefully next year we’ll have worked out how to help him more.

Relays

Men - 46.10 – I can’t lie, the time was slow, but the performance was good. We had two jumpers in the squad, and two inexperienced sprinters. The lads had been fantastic at practicing their changeovers and because of all their hard work, they got the baton around smoothly and did themselves proud.

Women - 51.62 – This was a great performance from a squad made up of 3 first years, 2 of whom are new to athletics. It is the joint 3rd fastest relay performance in, at least, the last 15 years by a Uni team. This was in bad conditions, too! All the practice undoubtedly paid off.