2019 Birmingham Diary: Tefera WR and Muir two national marks at the 2019 Muller Indoor GP Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM (GBR, Feb 16): Ethiopian festival in men´s 1500 m resulted in a superb world indoor 1500m record by last year World Indoor champion in the same hall Samuel Tefera at the Muller Indoor Grand Prix Birmingham at Arena Birmingham. The mark – which is still to be ratified – of 3:31.04, took 0.14 seconds off the previous best and he did it in brilliant fashion, powering away from Yomif Kejelcha 3:31.58 and Australian Stewart McSweyn 3:35.10 Oceanian record with Briton Josh Kerr fourth in 3:35.72 PB. Tasked with closing the show Laura Muir crossed the line at the end of her mile race, shattering Kirsty Wade’s 31-year-old national record with a mark of 4:18.75 (also a World lead), and also revised her own 1500m British mark which was recorded at 4:01.83. Second Winnie Nanyondo Ugandan record 4:29.40. Chinese World indoor silver medalist Su Bingtian cotinued his solid indoor form as he sealed victory in the men’s 60m race, winning from Britain’s European 100m silver medallist Reece Prescod in a World leading 6.47 to 6.53 of Prescod (equalled hiS PB). Third Mike Rodgers 6.54 and fourth Japan’s Takuya Kawakami also 6.54 NR. It was difficult to distinguish the top three in the women’s 60 metres in real time with just 0.02 seconds separating Elaine Thompson, Asha Philip and Marie-Josee Ta-Lou with 7.13, 7.14 and 7.15. An unsurprisingly popular victor on home soil for olly Bradshaw on countback in the women’s pole vault with 4.81 over Katie Nageotte and Nikoleta Kiriakopoulou (equalled PB – both 481) and Olympic winner Katerini Stefanidi 471. Shelayna Oskan-Clarke took the 800 m in 2:01.16 for another home win. US Jarret Eaton came out on top in both of his heat and final to claim victory and maximum World Indoor Tour points in the men’s 60m hurdles in a swift time of 7.51. Japanese World leader Naoto Tobe notched up another victory on the circuit with a near perfect score-card through to his winning height of 229 in the high jump. After a cautious opening series of laps in which it looked like the field was heading towards a finish dead on 9 minutes, the women’s 3000m concluded with an Ethiopian 1-2-3-4 as a frantic final 400m saw the pace wind up and Alemaz Samuel strike for victory by less than half a second ahead of Axumawit Embaye who clocked 8:54.97. Samuel is also the winner of IAAF World Indoor Tour 2019. Joseph Deng broke the indoor Oceanian record with a time of 1:47:27 while winning the 800 m, the race was marred by collision. Last year’s world indoor champion Ivana Spanovic claimed another win in the second city, a 6.78m season’s seeing the Serbian go from strength to strength in 2019 following an injury lay-off at the back end of 2018. In the men’s equivalent, event-favourite Juan Miguel Echevarria lived up to his billing as the one to watch in the field, with a sixth-round best of 8.21 and also celebrated the IAAF World Indoor Tour win. In the women’s 400m Jamaica’s Stephenie Ann McPherson took the overall victory in 400 m with 52.24 with Eilidh Doyle quick on her heels in 52.43. US Nathan Strother took a commanding and comfortable win over two laps of the track with 46.45. The women’s sprint hurdles saw Evonne Britton find personal best form at just the right time, with a swift 7.91.