Prescod shines amid sprint chaos

REECE PRESCOD sent out another flame-footed message to the sprinting world yesterday by finishing second in a strong 60m field at the Muller Indoor Grand Prix in Birmingham.

A personal best-equalling 6.53sec, behind China’s Bingtian Su, served notice of his immense potential in a long season that ends with the World Championships in eight months. But while Prescod causes excitement at British Athletics, there will be no disguising their embarrassment today when they name an incomplete sprint team for next month’s European Indoor Championships in Glasgow.

Only Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Ojie Edoburun have hit the selection criteria of attending last week’s British Indoor Championships and running either 6.60sec for the 60m or 10.20sec for the 100m since the start of the 2018 season. But with Mitchell-Blake removing himself from consideration, performance director Neil Black will only use a maximum of two of his three slots.

The situation falls on the stringent British Athletics standard of 6.60sec, compared to the Glasgow event’s barrier of 6.78sec. Only six Europeans have run under 6.60sec in 2019. It has meant no place for double European Indoor champion Richard Kilty, who ran 6.64sec yesterday. Kilty said: ‘There are only a handful of people in Europe who’ve run the British Athletics standard. I feel so confident I’d get better if I was in Glasgow.’

Laura Muir delivered the performance of the day, breaking Kirsty Wade’s 31-year-old British indoor mile record by five seconds. The 25-year-old finished in four minutes and 18.75 seconds to take her sixth British record.

Muir, who will chase 1500m and 3000m golds in Glasgow, said: ‘To run one of the fastest runs ever, get a British record and a win in your final race before the championships is perfect. I’m really happy and confident.’

Holly Bradshaw jumped 4.81m to beat Olympic and world pole vault champion Katerina Stefanidi.