EMMA Jackson completed an excellent week’s work with an impressive victory in the women’s international 800m A race. The 22-year-old City of Stoke runner made a late request to run the second meeting in the British Milers’ Club Grand Prix Series, which also incorporates the UK Challenge, after running a personal best of 2mins 01.5secs in Huelva, Spain, on Wednesday. The attraction of competing against a classy field, which also had an international flavour with Russian Anna Balakshina, persuaded Jackson and here coach Alan Morris to squeeze in another race ahead of the trials at the end of the month.
“When I saw the line-up and the weather forecast for Saturday night I was gutted I was not there so I gave the BMC a call and they were great in getting me into the race,” said Jackson, who has recently joined the On Camp With Kelly squad. But Jackson had to battle hard with Balakshina, who boasted a PB of 2:00.65 and British international and 2008 Olympic 1500m runner Steph Twell down the home straight with the Aldershot, Farnham & District runner delighted with her personal best of 2:02.59, clipping 1.21secs off the best she set at the Solihull Grand Prix last year.
“I’m so happy with that time and performance as I am training very hard at the moment. It is very encouraging,” said Twell. The race was one of the highlights of another action-packed evening that saw 29 races packed into four hours and had a strong continental flair with overseas runners, representing Russia, Latvia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Estonia, Australia, Ireland and even South Africa, winning two of the top races.

Sweden’s Mattias Claesson enjoyed himself so much when racing in Watford for the first time last year that he returned to successful defend his 800m title in what was his first race of the summer. “I was hoping for a bit quicker but that will come and I definitely believe I can beat my personal best (1:46.36) and run 1:45 this summer. I’m also hopeful of making the Sweden team for the European Championships in Barcelona,” said 23-year-old Claesson, who lives in Stockholm. “But this is a good race to open up and I enjoyed coming here again.”
Runner-up Richard Hill was encouraged by his run and now believes that the debilitating effects of the glandular fever he suffered last year are now firmly behind him. “Getting glandular fever is the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with,” said Hill. “But that is behind me now and I feel in good shape. For a change I ran a decent tactical race and it is just a shame that we didn’t go through 400m faster as I reckon I’m in 1:46 shape.” To put Hill’s performance into perspective coach Liam Cain, who helped organise the international athletes for the meeting, reminded him of his role at the same meeting twelve months ago. “He was just pace-making then and could only manager 500m as he felt so awful,” said Cain.
Sheffield RC’s 19-year-old Mukhtar Mohammed, whose PB of 1:47.82 at the BMC race in Stretford moved him up to seventh in the UK Rankings, showed up the back straight but was swamped around the bend as the race began to hot up and while he faded it will have been a valuable experience for him.

The other significant foreign success came in the women’s 1500m with Russian Under 23 athlete Yelena Korobkina living up to here tag as favourite with victory in a time of 4mins 10secs. “I am very pleased with that,” said 19-year-old Korobkina, whose time was a PB. Also running PBs were Stevie Stockton, Hazel Murphy and 16-year-old Emelia Gorecka.

Colin McCourt warmed up for the European Team Challenge with an emphatic victory in the 1500m, though he was hoping to be pushed to a faster time while runner-up Alastair Hay was delighted to break 3:40 for the first time with a PB of 3:38.9 in second place.
Gateshead Harriers’ Stacey Smith, who is coached by Mick Woods, timed her finish to perfection to overhaul Scottish junior Jenny Tan in the final 50 metres of the 800m B race to clinch a morale-boosting victory ahead of the England Athletics Under 23 Championships, when she will switch to the 1500m. Tan again just missed her target of 2:05.00 for the World Junior Championships but as coach Liz McColgan stressed, that is surely a matter of time.

Twenty-year-old James Shane looked very impressive in winning the 800m B race in a new personal best of 1:47.99, eclipsing his previous best of 1:48.6 while Morpeth’s Nick McCormick popped up in the D race as he seeking a good work-out ahead of tackling the 1500m at the trials. “I wanted an even-paced race tonight rather than blast it in the A event and then get swallowed up so for me it was job done,” said McCormick.

In the women’s 1500m B race Gemma Turtle made her first serious appearance since the World Indoor Championships, since when a thigh injury cost her a month on the sidelines. Training partner Rose-Anne Galligan paced her through the bell (3:11.16) but Turtle’s lack of fitness then took its toll although she managed to hold her form sufficiently to resist a large pack chasing her down on the final circuit.

Running his first track race of the year – and only his second outing in addition to winning the Mersey Tunnel 10k road race (32:29) last month - Stuart Stokes dominated the 3000m steeplechase for victory in a time of 8:41.1 to go straight into second place in the UK Rankings behind Luke Gunn (8:35.05).
There was another popular Irish victory in the women’s 3000m steeplechase with Fionnuala Britton finally shaking off Coventry’s Tina Brown after quite a battle in the early stages while Emma Raven clocked a huge PB by over 16 seconds for third.
Barely two hours after her 800m PB Twell raced to victory in the 5000m with a season’s best of 15:28.29 but the real success was 21-year-old Emily Pidgeon’s second place in 15:32.27 to finally eclipse a PB of 15:41.00 that she set in the BMC GP in Solihull in June 2006.

Race Videos
Videos of all the races at Watford can be found at www.athleticos.com. Link HERE

Mens 800m A
L-R Ellis, Chepkirwok , McCarthy, Hill		L-R Claesson, Chepkirwok , McCarthy, Ellis, Aston, Hill

Womens 800m A
Gibson from Balakshina		L-R Jackson, Taylor, Griffiths, Balakshina, Twell, Gibson

Womens 800m B
Harewood and Hunt	L-R Bird, Smith, Weightman, Harewood, Tan	L-R Weightman, Smith, Harewood, Tan

Men 1500m A
After 100m	After 500m	After 900n

		200m to go

Mens 3000m Steeplechase
Stokes from Farah and Bailey	Stokes from Farah	Last Barrier	Finish

Womens 3000m Steeplechase
Britton from Brown	Raven and Orr	Raven and Orr