LUCA Indoor Championships Report

Last Sunday, over 250 athletes travelled to Lee Valley Athletics Centre to compete in the LUCA Athletics Championships.

The morning got off to a great start with Sebastian Coe (IAAF president) wishing those competing the ‘Best of Luck’ via twitter. The event itself was a combination of three different championships: the LUCA Indoor Athletics Championships, the University of London Intercollegiate Championships, and the 149th United Hospital Athletics Championships.

With three titles and multiple medals on offer, the day was filled with encouragement and support from all the competitors, leading to very tightly fought races. UCL successfully defended their 2015 title for the LUCA championships and won the David Morgan Cup with a total of 38 points.

King’s came second with 33 points, closely followed by Brunel with 30 points. Meanwhile King’s led the standings for the University of London title for most of the day but due to an outstanding performance by the UCL relay teams, the final few events of the day, UCL clinched the title by a single point.

Despite two second place positions in the other championships, King’s showed complete dominance in the United Hospitals Athletics Championships, winning the title by over 20 points – RVC finished second, followed by Imperial in third.

LUCA and UofL Champions - UCL. Credit: Chen Liang, Y Fei and Jay Reynolds
LUCA and UofL Champions (UCL). Credit: Chen Liang, Y Fei and Jay Reynolds

On the individual side: the first track event of the day was the 60m hurdles, a straight final for both the women and men. Chloe Vernon Hamilton of Brunel crossed the finish line in first place, with a time of 9.13s for women, lighting the way for her teammate, Gavin Philips, who won the mens race in 8.65s. Chloe also went on to win the Shot Put.

The mens 3000m was well contested, with 20 athletes taking to the start line. The race came down to a close finish and was won by Maximilian Nicholls (King’s), followed by Charlie Haywood (UCL). Yasmin Lakin, from LSE, had an impressive championships, leaving with not only four first place finishes in the 60m, High Jump, Long Jump and Triple Jump but also the ‘MVP’ title of the meet. The title of MVP is awarded to the athlete who tallies the most amount of points throughout the competition.

Mens 60m HEAT 2. Credit: Chen Liang, Y Fei and Jay Reynolds.
Mens 60m HEAT 2. Credit: Chen Liang, Y Fei and Jay Reynolds.

If you wish you could relive some of the fantastic moments from the Indoor Championships, you can! All races were recorded and will be uploaded to the LUCA TV YouTube channel in due course. The videos from the relays are already available here.

Results are listed here.

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About Rhianna Madden-Hansle 5 Articles
Rhianna is an undergraduate medical student at UCL.