British 200m trio all reach semi-finals with high hopes

Britain’s 200m sprint trio of Danny Talbot, Zharnel Hughes and Nethaneel Mitchell-blake all reached tomorrow’s semi-finals.

It came after the struggles of their 100m colleagues, where only Reece Prescod reached the final.

Talbot ran a personal best of 20.16s, level with Olympic champion Wayde van Niekerk in the third heat – although Van Niekerk slowed considerably in the final 20 metres.

Talbot said: “I think I’m in the best shape of my life so I’m just trying to go with it. I’m very grateful to be in the position I am.

“It’s definitely the best season I’ve ever had and to be able to have that going into a home World Championships is something you can only dream of.

“It’s not over yet, I try to stay in the present as much as possible. My next focus is the semi-finals – I’ll try to win that then go from there.

“For me the only thing that’s important right now is getting the best recovery possible then I’ll take it from there.”

Mitchell-blake ran 20.08s to win his heat after Canada’s Aaron Brown was disqualified and Hughes, selected ahead of Adam Gemili for the individual race, finished fourth in his heat in 20.43.

Yohan Blake and Sani Brown qualified comfortably but Van Niekerk, who won 400m Olympic gold in Rio, is the strong favourite for the title.

Olympic champion Omar Mcleod finally gave Jamaica its first gold of the championships, winning the men’s 110m hurdles ahead of defending champion Sergey Shubenkov of Russia. Balazs Baji of Hungary took bronze in 13.28.