With the first rounds of the Men's and Women's British League now completed, London Progress finds themselves in second place in both Premier divisions. The reason? The arrival of a certain Ms Wu courtesy of the Bristol Academy. In both Men's and Women's Premier Divisions our top stars have come out second best to the delightfully talented Chinese starlet Ms Wu, and if London Progress are to seize the two British Club titles this season, it is the wonderful Ms Wu that we must overcome. Ironically, it was our leading lady, Egle Adomelyte who came closest to defeating Ms Wu, falling at the final hurdle, 11-9 in the fifth. Egle showed in spectacular fashion that WuYue Jiao can be beaten. The question remains, after eight historic seasons in control of the British League, do the London Progress Men's team have the will and talent to overcome the Chinese/Scottish challenge from the Bristol Academy?
In other British news we can report that our Division One Men's team are in first place In Div 1South, in second place in Div 1South& Midlands and, due to some wonderful performances by our youngsters, are in second place in Div 2 South. Great performances have been recorded by Alex Echavarria, Dhaivat Pandya, Chris Bush and Ashley Stokes, Daniel Cannon and Tony Halling in Division One, and Garth Kinlock, Daniel Ives and the Collins brothers, Jake and Ryan in Division 2. In Division 4 it was the ever improving Andrew Hagger that caught the attention of the objective onlooker.
As for our women's team, Egle Adomelyte, Marcia Ma (on loan from York Gardens) and Hannah Hicks proved they are still very much in contention for the title, just one point behind last year's champions, DML Woolwell.
Garth Kinlock takes Player of the Weekend
In the Junior British League Premier Division, all the close games against Barnet and York Gardens went to the opposition so London Progress find themselves, despite some great performances by Ashley Stokes, Matt Ware and Richard Marshell, in third place, exactly where their national rankings expected them to be.The real victory for London Progress came from the fact that the club was able to field no less than four highly competitive teams, with the Division 2 team in first place and the Division 1 & 3 teams holding second spot after the first weekend's play. Player of the weekend was undoubtedly and deservedly Garth Kinlock but every Progress player performed well with Alex Fegredo and Rafi Marom particularly excelling in their respective divisions.
Jon Kaufman
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