WOODFORD Green with Essex Ladies’ sprint hurdling sisters secured their Olympic places as several of the club’s athletes with in action at the British Championships in Birmingham at the weekend.

The Essex club’s Tiffany Porter and Cindy Ofili secured their places in the Great Britain & Northern Ireland team for the Rio Games as they finished first and second in the women’s 100m hurdlers with times of 12.91 and 12.93 seconds respectively.

In the same event Hollie Pattie-Belleli narrowly missed out on a place in the final as she placed third in her heat, crossing the line in 13.61.

Before heading to South America though, Porter will also be in action for Britain at the European Championships in the Netherlands next week after being named in Britain’s 97-strong team.

In the men’s hammer Mark Dry placed second with 74.92m and although he reached a qualifying distance for the European Championships his season’s best of 76.26m is still slightly short of the 77.00m Rio qualifying standard.

Lucy Marshall produced a good performance in the women’s hammer as she recorded a new season’s best of 60.10m to place fifth ahead of HCA member Myra Perkins, who was sixth with 58.10m.

Anthony Oshodi came second in the men’s shot put with a season’s best of 17.43m and Youcef Zatat placed fourth with 17.02m.

In the triple jump, Zainab Ceesay finished fifth with 12.87m and in the discus it was another season’s best for Chris Linque, who finished with 50.77m ahead of Devon Douglas with 48.79m.

In the women’s discus event Hollie Redman came 12th with 39.40m.

Jon Cook finished sixth in the 1500m final as he crossed the line in a time of 3.45.97 seconds.

In the heats of the men’s 400m hurdles Jack Lawrie was close to securing a place in the final but finished third with 51.69 seconds, while Ewan Dyer was fourth in his heat with 52.44.

Vincent Oges reached the semi-final of the men’s 400m where he placed seventh in 49.47 seconds.

Alex Bell and Daniel Grey also recorded 49.31 and 50.16 seconds in the heats with Sam Watts and Jordan Kirby-Polidore both placing fourth in the men’s 200m heats.

In the women’s event, HCA member Jo Ryan was fifth coming in at 25.08 seconds and in the 100m heats, another HCA member, Jermaine Hamilton, recorded 10.98 seconds.

Jordan Donnelly and Canaan Soloman both missed out on the semi-final in the 800m as Donnelly placed fourth with 1:52.57 and Solomon crossed the line in seventh with 1:52.17.

Chloe Bradley recorded a new personal best in the women’s 800m event beating her last time as she came home in with 2:09.02.