Nothing can quite beat the record week we had two weeks ago, with world and British indoor records. But, this week certainly wasn’t short of excellence.
On home soil
On home soil, England’s future stars flocked to Sheffield to compete at the England Athletics Indoor age Group Championships. The event promised top-class talent who have already shone brightly this indoor season, and the championships certainly didn’t produce anything less than excellence. There seemed to be something in the water in Sheffield, as championship bests after championship bests were hunted down and new bars were set, putting 2019 firmly in the record books.
Check out out event round up for more info!
On the same weekend, the best of Scotland’s distance athletes battled it out on the fields of Falkirk at the Lindsays Scottish National Cross Country Championships. Another one for the history books, 2019 saw a record number of entries, with almost 2500 athletes set to compete. Amongst those were Olympians, triathletes and ultra-marathon runners. Steph Twell made her debut at the event and won the women’s race in style.
The Saucony English national Cross Country also took place this weekend in Leeds. It was last year’s junior winner, Mahamed Mahamed, who took the senior men’s title in a time of 36:34 for two-laps of the 12km course. Aldershot came out on top as Emily Hokser won the women’s race in 28:17. Pippa Woolven finished second, well clear of former champion, Jessica Judd, in third.
It’s almost time for Euros…
Athletes are doing their final preparations for this weekend’s European Championships. Check rout the full team selection here.
Two-time European Indoor Champion Richard Kilty received special invite from European Athletics last week to compete in Glasgow this weekend.The news comes after British Athletics released their record 48 strong team after the Müller Birmingham Grand Prix just last weekend, which only featured one male 60m sprinter, Ojie Edoburun (Shaftesbury Barnet).Richard has also been working hard to get back on top form, and his 6.63 clocking in Birmingham last weekend was proof of that. He finished in 6th place in the final but has been working tirelessly to get back to his best, so this invitation demonstrates his efforts aren’t going unnoticed!
Across the pond
Donovan Brazier set a world indoor best for the 600m at the Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex in the New York City borough of Staten Island on Sunday. The 21-year-old stopped the clock at 1:13.77, smashing the previous best set in January 2018 by Kenyan Michael Saruni. There were more records in the women’s event. 16 year old Athing Mu produced 1:23.57, which is the second fastest performance of all time. She pipped three-time NCAA 800m champion, Raevyn Rogers, to the post. In was incredible really.
Caster controversy continues
Three-time world 800m champion Caster Semenya is locked in a battle between the IAAF and the Court of Arbitration for Sport. In April last year, it was declared that athletes with high testosterone levels, naturally, would be forced to race against men or switch events in order to not give them such a significant advantage over other female athletes. The third option was for athletes like Semenya to take medication to lower these levels, which comes from new regulations for female classification in athletics. As we can all imagine, this has been a very traumatic and humiliating time for the infamous and record-breaking Semenya. If you’d like to read up on the very lengthy topic, find out more here.
