REECE LIGHTNING
Prescod goes for gold… and will buy mum a car if he wins
IT is rather charming that in the stadium where Jesse Owens ran Olympic rings around the Nazis and Usain Bolt did the very best of his work, Reece Prescod really wouldn’t mind if a Volkswagen Beetle served as the legacy of his trip to Berlin.
It is the car his mother has been eyeing for a while and the one he wants to buy for her if the medal bonuses start coming in.
With that in mind, she might be able to pick a colour as early as this evening, when he goes for 100 metres gold on the opening night of the European Championships.
Bookmakers price him at around 5-1, below Britain’s Zharnel Hughes and France’s Jimmy Vicaut, who together rank as the fastest men in Europe this year at 9.91sec. That could be a costly oversight.
On the surface, his times make the bookies about right, with a personal best of 10.03sec ranking him only sixth among Britain’s current sprinters. A far more accurate gauge of his talent is the windassisted 9.88sec run he delivered in the US earlier in the summer.
Had the wind been a shade less and his time allowed to stand, he would sit just 0.01sec off Linford Christie, the British record holder, and it is with some justification that figures in athletics think that 25-year- old 9.87sec mark could finally fall.
The forecasted temperature in the high 20s to early 30s would be just about perfect for records, and so long as the wind is favourable, Christie’s record could be more vulnerable than ever.
Hughes is also capable of breaking it after a superb season in which he was disqualified from a Commonwealth Games gold in the 200m for a lane infringement.
CJ Ujah, 2017 Diamond League series champion, is the third Brit in the 100m and a one-two-three, while unlikely with Vicaut in the field, is not beyond possibility. That is testament to the unprecedented depth in British sprinting, but it is Prescod who the world-leading American talents view as the longer-term threat. It is also Prescod who struck the most confident notes coming in. Before the year’s biggest meet he said: ‘I don’t wake up to be the best in Europe — what drives me to train is to be world champion, to be the best.’
Strong words followed by a reference to this summer’s British Championships, when Hughes was installed by many as a favourite after his 9.91sec, only to be beaten by Prescod for a second straight national title.
‘I’ve only really lost to guys on the world stage,’ said Prescod. ‘People forget that. They say, “Oh yeah, he’s not the favourite any more”. People remember me then forget me. I’m getting used to it.’
He added: ‘Zharnel is running well. He’s run 9.9 this year, which is good. I haven’t legally run that, but at the same time I’ve looked at the performances prior to the British Championships and on paper you could say he was going to win.
‘But it came down to the day and the result was different.’
When asked how he would celebrate if he won here, Prescod said: ‘I come from a singleparent family and so as long as my mum’s good, that’s my priority. She has bills to pay and I’ve got to help so as much as I would love to live a footballer glamorous life, I’ve got real life to deal with.
‘She doesn’t have a car at the moment, but she does want a new car. I’ve also got little sisters and they like Disneyland so I want to do things like that.’
From a British perspective, Prescod’s meeting with Hughes tonight could be the showdown of the Championships.
Also tonight, Dina AsherSmith will start favourite in the 100m in the first of two duels with double world champion Dafne Schippers, who she will also face in the 200m. With a relay at the weekend, she is chasing a hat-trick at the end of a season in which she lowered her own 100m British record.
Along with the male sprinters, Asher- Smith could take this 101-strong team well on the way towards their UK Sport medal target, which Sportsmail understands has been set at between 12 and 16.
They should reach it comfortably, but will need an upturn in fortunes after captain Dai Greene withdrew from the 400m hurdles last night with a hamstring problem — the latest setback in a long line of injuries for the 32-year-old.