Editor’s post: The Novuna UK Athletics Championships were held June 20-21, 2026. We missed two strong articles by Stuart Weir, and we apologize about that. I like this piece, as Success Eduan surprised many with her win!
The women’s sprints
The women’s sprints were one of the truly world-class events at the 2026 British Athletics Championships, an event in which GB had three athletes – Amy Hunt, Darryl Neita and Dina Asher-Smith who would grace any sprint race. Unfortunately, Darryl was injured and missed trials.
Elsewhere, I have written about Amy Hunt’s (11.01) win over Dina Asher-Smith (11.13) in the 100m. https://www.runblogrun.com/2026/06/amy-hunt-won-the-100-meters.html
The four semi-finals saw wins for Amy, Dina, Imani Lansiquot and Success Eduan. Success was fastest in 22.75, but I honestly didn’t pay much attention to that. Semi-finals just require you to do enough to make the final while conserving energy.
Asher-Smith had announced her intention in advance only to run one round of the 200 and skip the final – although I was not aware of that until just before the final.
The result of the final was
1 Success Eduan 22.43 PR
2 Amy Hunt 22.64
3 Kristal Ama-Awuah 22.99 PR
An excited Eduan commented afterward: “I didn’t know how fast I could go today, but I am just thankful and grateful to God that I executed the race that I wanted to. It’s only the fourth race of my season, so it is onwards and upwards from here. I always believe in myself, as do all my team and my coach. I have so much more to come. Athletics is still not my full-time thing at the moment. I am still doing midwifery as my degree, so I am really grateful. I know I can work even harder and do more”.
Amy Hunt summed up her thoughts: “Today was a really interesting one because I didn’t have to show up per selection policy, but we decided we still wanted to come out and do it. We wanted to use it as sort of training because we haven’t been able to train as we would’ve liked to. We have run up against some really annoying, frustrating issues, so it means I’ve spent a lot of time on the bike. So, I think that kind of showed in the second half of that race. I definitely have that speed, so I and the 100m are getting along better than the 200m, but it just means I need to go and put the sessions in”.
To be honest, I don’t know much about Success. She is 21 and took bronze in the European U20 champs 2021 and 2023 and gold in the European U23 in 2025 – all at 200m. Her only senior medal was in the 4×100 in the World Relays in Guangzhou last year
She is a midwifery student at the University of Salford, Manchester.
Success’s unexpected victory in the 200m leaves the selectors with a decision to make. Eduan and Hunt will be in the GB team for the European Championships, plus either Dina Asher-Smith or Darryl Neita.
