Few stars, but Brits still shine
THEY FINISH 3rd IN WORLD CUP
IT Turns out athletics isn’t coming home, either. A day after Gareth southgate’s merry men were nudged into fourth place in russia, Britain grabbed a podium finish in the Athletics World Cup.
not that it was a blaze of glory — their only gold came in the 4x100m relay on the second day of competition after collecting two in saturday’s opener.
But by virtue of six further podium finishes, they were able to storm from fifth out of eight in the standings to third, with the USA the runaway winners.
The charge last night was led by Commonwealth Games champion nick Miller, who was second in the hammer behind the worldleading Pole Wojciech nowicki, while 2011 world champion Dai Greene took third in the 400m hurdles in his first appearance in a British vest for five years.
There was also breakthrough promise in the performance of Beth Dobbin, a receptionist at Loughborough university, who stunned the professionals to win the British championships earlier this summer, then took third in the 200m last night.
Along with neil Gourley, third in the 1500m, second-placed high jumper Morgan Lake and Adelle Tracey, who was an impressive second in the 800m, they carried the team within striking distance of second-placed Poland.
The closeness of the leaderboard in this inaugural edition served as vindication for a format that was dreamed up by UK Athletics and holds more potential than any of the other ideas being batted around.
But the sense persists that the execution here was lacking, as demonstrated by the lack of big names, owing to gripes over appearance money, scheduling and contract issues.
But regardless of the lack of star appeal, they did well in relative terms for the sport with around 45,000 in attendance across two days.
Talks are now underway for two more World Cups — China are understood to be interested in 2020 and the USA in 2022.
IAAF president Lord Coe said: ‘I’ve been very clear that I want new things to be tried. They are not always going to work out from the word go but that can’t inhibit us.’
Greene said: ‘ Anything that brings competitive athletes together is a good thing.’