It was excellent final morning session at Hampden for Team England as they achieved a near perfect record in qualification, with 10 athletes progressing on to the next round of competition.
The only major blip came in the men’s 400metre hurdles where only Rick Yates could reach the final as reigning Champion Dai Greene and British Champion Niall Flannery crashed out.
Despite a strong first 150m Greene’s lack of fitness showed as the race went on, with reigning champion falling from 1st to 5th as Roxroy Cato of Jamaica took victory, in the same race Yates went through as a fastest loser which in turn knocked out Niall Flannery, who had finished 4th in his heat, into the unfortunate position of 9th overall.
There were no such issue in the women’s 800m with all 6 British athletes making it through. In the 1st of the 3 heats Jenny Meadows led Lynsey Sharp to an Anglo Celtic 1,2. Jessica Judd and Emily Dudgeon came through as 2nd and 3rd fastest overall in the second heat. The third heat was led out by Marilyn Okoro, who just squeezed through as a fastest loser despite coming 5th in the final heat, in which Northern Ireland’s Katie Kirk finished 2nd.
Danny Talbot looked impressive as he cruised through to the 200m semi-finals as the 2nd fastest qualifier of the morning. Winning his heat in 20.56, the 2012 European Bronze medallist even had time to slow down before the line and reserve some energy. Similarly comfortable, were James Ejllington and Chris Clarke; both second in their respective races, narrowly missing out on 1st to Jamaicans Jason Livermore and Rasheed Dwyer, Northern Ireland’s Leon Ried made it through as a fastest qualifier.
In the women’s Long jump qualification there was 100% progression from team England as Jazmin Sawyers, Shara Proctor and Lorraine Ugen all leapt over 6 metres 30 to advance. There was no such success however for the Scots, with both Sarah Warnock and Jade Nimmo narrowly missing out.
The host nation fared slightly better in the women’s high jump as Jayne Nisbet made the final. She will be joined there by English medal contender Isobel Pooley after she cleared each of her qualifying heights first time.
Further success came in the final field event of the session, the men’s Discus, as Brits Carl Myerscough, Brett Morse, Angus Mcinroy and Zane Dunquemin all progressed, despite none of them throwing the automatic qualifying mark of 63 metres.
With 2 events to go in the women’s Heptathlon Brianne Thieson-Eaton holds a huge 361 point advantage over closest rival Jessica Zelinka who herself is 148 ahead of England’s Jessica Taylor who scored a 6.26 Pb in the long jump.
