Holly Bradshaw, photo by PhotoRun.net
This story is by Stuart Weir on the medal prospects of British athletics. Stuart notes, rightly so, that there is more to the success of British athletics than medal counts. Some fine performances came from Briitsh athletics, who did not get medals.
Medals don’t tell the whole story
The GB medal target for the week is six. At the moment with only Mo Farah’s 10,000m gold in the bag, the target seems a long way off. There have been some disappointing performances, like Katarina Johnson-Thompson failing to reach her potential in the heptathlon, falling far short of her PR in her strongest events the long and high jumps to leave her in fifth place and Sophie Hitchon failing to repeat her Rio medal winning hammer throw, managing only 7th. Andy Pozzi not making the final in the 110 hurdles and then seeing (at least) the bronze medal won in a time well within his compass.
Holly Bradshaw was sixth in the women’s pole vault. While she was disappointed with her performance, she was just one failed clearance from a share of bronze on countback.
Equally there have been some outstanding performances this week.
In the women’s 1500m GB had all 4 runners in the semi-finals and two in the final, Laura Weightman sixth and Laura Muir fourth, seven hundredths of a second from bronze.
Callum Hawkins had a magnificent run to finish fourth in the men’s marathon.
Women’s sprinting displayed a consistency with three runners in the semi-finals of the 100 and two in the 200. In the male sprints, Reece Prescod achieved a superb 7th place in the 100m final with CJ Ujah ninth fastest in the semi-finals just missing out on the final. All three GB men reached the semi-finals of the 200 and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake is in the final.
Kyle Langford, who many people did not expect to reach the final came fourth with a new personal best of 1:45.25 just 0.04 seconds from the bronze medal.
British team captain Eilidh Doyle, who never lets the team town at a major championship, has battled through to the final of the 400 hurdles.
The medal target is still on. A lot depends on the relays. Either way there is a lot to be pleased about in the GB performances this week.
