by Stuart Weir
Brit watch – Monaco
There were 11 GB athletes competing in Monaco in different formats. This is what happened.
Ben Pattison 800m 5th 1:42.27
Ben ran a PR of 1:42.27 for fifth place in the 800m but was not satisfied, telling me: “I feel like I could have run better. I trusted myself. I just stuck to the rail and knew the gaps would open up when I needed them to. I probably let the leaders go a bit too much. But I closed well and yes, to run a PB by that much, I know I’m in good shape. It’s been a long time coming, but now all eyes on Paris and I know I can beat those guys, if but don’t make the mistakes I did here”.
Neil Gourley 1500m 5th 3:30.65,
Fifth in the 1500, in an season’s best 3:30.65, just 0.6 outside his PR but he had expected more: “The race was aggressive; I knew it would be. I was hoping to be further up. When Laros went down, I lost connection. And it’s so hard to get back on it. But it’s a learning experience, I felt like the race kind of happened to me rather than me imposing myself on the race, which is frustrating but I still ran OK, just about in line with my PB. I don’t feel like I handled myself perfectly tactically. I should have been out harder, and so avoided that initial fall.
The instinct is to panic after someone falls and I didn’t. I still picked off one or two people, which is good but, yeah, I wanted to be further up that field today”.
Molly Caudery Pole Vault 3rd 4.83
The margins are so small and the tactics fascinating with Molly getting 4.83, skipping 4,88 and nearly getting 4.93. She said: “Well, it was a very good competition. You know, the girls really brought it tonight. To have two girls over 4.88 was incredible. I’m pretty happy; I need to figure a few things out and I have couple things to work on, but tonight was not the one that counts. The Olympics will be a real battle and anyone could win it. It was a battle out there today and it’s just about who’s going to get it on the day which makes it exciting actually. We have London Diamond League next week which should pretty much be a rematch of today, which will be fun and I expect the Olympic Final will be pretty similar as well”.
Melissa Courtney-Bryant 2nd 2000m 5:26.08
Melissa broke a British record which has stood since 1994 in the rarely run 2K. She had never run it before. It was a real leap in the dark: “It was really unknown. I had no idea what to expect. I have never run a 2K in my life My coach just told me ‘it’s gonna hurt’. I just thought I’m going to put myself out there and probably go out at 1500 pace and then hopefully settle. I think we settled a little bit too much. Then I thought, I’ve gotta get moving now. I actually watched Yvonne Murray and Sonia O’Sullivan’s 1994 race back the other day on YouTube, and they really rallied on the last lap. So I thought, OK that’s the record I was going for”. As I mentioned in another article, Melissa was fourth in the GB trials and is one of those athletes who is good enough to run in the Olympics but just missed out.
Dina Asher-Smith 3rd 100m in 10.99
Dina was quick to point out the negative wind and as always took positives from the race, saying “It was good. It was into -1 headwind, so I know there’s a great time waiting to happen. I’m definitely taking that today. I’m happy with it. It’s over to London next week. That’s gonna be really good”. She also told me that she would not be in the GB team holding camp, preferring to stay with her coach and her training group until the games.
It was strange 100m with two athletes running 10.99, Marie-Josee Ta Lou Smith (surely the longest name in sprinting!) 11.08 and with Tamara Clark and Aleia Hobbs seventh and eight in 11.25/26. But then there was Julien Alfred winning in 10.85.
Elliot Giles, tripped in the 800 final at the GB trials and therefore missing out on Paris was 13th in the 1500 in 3:40.72. Hannah Nuttall was 14th in the 5000m in 15:37.21, an event in which GB does not have an athlete in Paris.
Then there was Katie Snowden, fifth in the GB trials so not going to the Olympics yet someone who ran 3:58.13 in the Meeting de Paris last weekend. In Monaco she was a pacemaker in the 5k.
In the pre-program there were two 1000m races and three British athletes. In the men’s race Proctor, was sixth in 2:26.55 an excellent time for a 38 year-old. In the women’s race Alex Mundell (aged 28) was fifth in 2:56.59 and Nicole Edmunds (25) was sixth in 2:56.77. I am intrigued as to why there should be a 1000m and why those three – none of whom ran in the GB champs this year – were chosen. It remains one of life’s mysteries.
