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WORLD CHAMPION KILTY TO COMPETE AT BT GREAT CITYGAMES MANCHESTER
30 April 2014
Richard Kilty, ‘the Teesside Tornado,’ is to run his first race on home soil as a world sprint champion when he lines up in the BT Great CityGames Manchester on Saturday 17 May.
The unlikely lad from the north-east of England, who upset the odds by lifting the coveted men’s 60m crown at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Poland last month, will return from a warm-weather training camp in Florida to contest the 100m race in the annual festival of world class street athletics in Manchester.
“It’s going to be amazing,” Kilty said. “I couldn’t think of anything better than to come home and run in Manchester as a new world champion. I’m proud to be a northerner and to run in front of a northern crowd in my first race in Britain after the World Indoor Championships is going to be really special.
“I love Manchester. It’s one of my favourite cities. I’ve run there in the BT Great City Games before and I’m really looking forward to coming back.”
Confirmation of Kilty’s appearance is another major boost for an event that has become established as a hugely popular curtain-raiser to the outdoor summer track season.
Jamaica’s Yohan ‘The Beast’ Blake, the 2011 world 100m champion, will be running in the 150m on the special pop-up track on Deansgate on 17 May. Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford, who last week leapt to an outdoor British record of 8.51m, will be competing in the field events arena in front of Manchester Town Hall in Albert Square.
Kilty will be gunning for his first win on the Deansgate track, last year the 24-year-old Gateshead Harrier was runner up in the 100m behind former world champion Kim Collins of St Kitts and Nevis. In both 2011 and 2010 he finished second over the same distance to 2004 Olympic 4 x 100m relay gold medallist Mark Lewis-Francis.
This time Kilty will be challenged by Trell Kimmons, a member of the United States’ silver medal winning 4 x 100m
relay team at London 2012, and by Ujah Chijindu, the budding 20-year-old British sprinter who won the European junior 100m title in Rieti last summer.
Kilty has three targets for the 2014 outdoor summer season: to break ten seconds for 100m and to finish on the podium at the Commonwealth Games and European Championships. The Teessider, who almost quit track and field after being controversially overlooked for Olympic selection two years ago, would appear to stand every chance of achieving those aims, having followed in the footsteps of the great American Maurice Greene by winning the world indoor 60m title.
“When I was growing up, Maurice Greene was my idol,” Kilty said. “Back in those days, when I used to watch him running on television, I could only dream of becoming like him. Now, to be a world indoor champion, alongside his name, is an indescribable feeling.”
It was only in the winter of 2012-13 that Kilty was so short of funds he was forced to do his sprint training on a tarmac path by the side of the River Tees in his home town, Stockton.
Shorn of sponsorship and funding after failing to make the British team for the 2012 Olympics, he could not afford the £5 to go through his paces at Clairville Stadium in Middlesbrough.
“It’s a cycle path and walkway,” KIlty said, “just across the river from the council estate where I was brought up in Stockton-on-Tees. It’s a really rough area – high crime, high poverty.
“You go across what’s called the Infinity Bridge and there’s this really quiet area, with a cycle path that stretches for about 300 metres. I’d go there to do sessions in my trainers – 150m repetitions, things like that.
“Sometimes I had nobody to run with and friends from the council estate would come along on a motorbike and stay just a little bit ahead of me. I’d run after the motorbike until I got tired.
“It makes everything I have now such a luxury, with a training base in Loughborough, where I’ve got great athletes around me, a great coach in Rana Reider, a great support team and great facilities.”
The BT Great CityGames Manchester will take place on Saturday 17 May on an IAAF certified, purpose built track on Deansgate and at a pop-up athletics arena in Albert Square in the city centre. It is completely free to spectate and no tickets are required, the event will be shown live on BBC One and BBC One HD from 13:15.
The BT Great CityGames Manchester is part of a weekend-long celebration of sport in the city, culminating in the Bupa Great Manchester Run, Europe’s biggest 10K on Sunday 18 May.
Nova International
The BT Great CityGames Manchester is brought to you by a partnership between Manchester City Council and event organisers Nova International and is sponsored by BT.
Nova International were established in 1988 and headed by Olympic Medallist Brendan Foster; Nova have established themselves as a market leader in the world of sports
marketing and event management. The company’s current brand portfolio includes Great Run, based on the Bupa Great North Run, the world’s biggest half marathon with 56,000 entries.
About BT
BT is one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in more than 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband, TV and internet products and services; and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, BT Retail, BT Wholesale and Openreach.
For the year ended 31 March 2013, BT Group’s reported revenue was £18,103m with reported profit before taxation of £2,315m.
British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York.
For more information, visit www.btplc.com.
BT and sport
BT was the official communications services partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. BT backed London’s initial bid in 2004, while its support for the British Paralympic Association (BPA) dates back to 1989 when BT became the BPA’s first commercial partner. BT was the first London 2012 partner to extend its support for the British Paralympic team to 2016.
In addition to being the title partner of the BT Great CityGames Manchester, BT is also the headline partner of the sport industry’s flagship recognition event – the BT Sport Industry Awards.
In August 2013, BT launched BT Sport. BT Sport is the UK’s newest sports TV service, with three channels showing a host of sport, including live top tier action from the Barclays Premier League, with 38 exclusively live matches, of which 18 are “top picks”. The channels will also show live FA Cup with Budweiser matches for the next five seasons, UEFA Europa League, top tier football from Germany, Italy, France, Brazil, Australia and the USA, live coverage of the Scottish Premiership, plus action from the FA Women’s Super League and 30 live matches from the Football Conference.
From 2015/16 BT Sport will be the new UK home of live UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League football, after a tender process in which BT won the exclusive live broadcast rights to all 350 matches from both tournaments.
BT in the North West
BT employs around 8,000 people in the North West, making the company one of the region’s largest employers.
BT’s economic contribution to the North West totalled £1.3 billion in 2012/13, expressed as “Gross Value Added” according to a report carried out by Regeneris Consulting (“Social Study 2013 – The Economic Impact of BT in the United Kingdom”). BT also committed more than £3 million to community, charity and voluntary programmes in the region in the same period.
As part of its commitment to support local events, and long-term support of Paralympic sport, BT supported the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester for four years and last year sponsored the BT GreatCity Games Manchester for the first time.
BT is also a partner of the International Festival for Business (IFB), the largest business event of the year, which is taking place in Liverpool and Manchester over 50 days this summer.
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by Larry Eder
