Athletics: Budapest prospects brighten
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Your support makes all the difference.IF THE weather forecasters are correct, the unrelenting heat and humidity in which Wednesday night's Weltklasse meeting took place will have provided useful acclimatisation for those also taking part in next week's European Championships.
Temperatures which remained at over 32C even during the last event, which ended at 10.30pm, provided several of Britain's leading performers with what might have been a foretaste of their next competition in Budapest, where temperatures are expected to be even higher.
While the world triple jump record holder, Jonathan Edwards, was the only British winner in Zurich, there were a number of other encouraging performances, notably in the 400 metres, where Mark Richardson and Iwan Thomas confirmed their position as favourites to take European gold and silver. The main question now appears to be who will take which medal, although Richardson was heartened by his fourth place in 44.48sec, one position ahead of his Welsh rival who was timed at 44.54.
The Windsor athlete now has a 5-1 advantage over Thomas this season, although the latter won the AAA trial in convincing style.
"It was nice to get the better of Iwan again," Richardson said. "He's going to be the one to beat in Budapest. It shows what I have achieved this season that I am slightly disappointed to run 44.48. Last year I would have been over the moon with that time."
Richardson added that he was still tired from his effort five days earlier at the Monte Carlo Grand Prix, where a late sprint took him past Thomas near the line. "I went out a lot harder here," he said. "If I can do that and then kick over the last 150 metres like I did in Monaco I will smash the European record."
That mark of 44.33sec, set by East Germany's Thomas Schonlebe in 1987, appears within range for both Richardson, who has a best of 44.37, and Thomas, who holds the British record of 44.36.
There were three Americans ahead of the British pair on Wednesday, headed by Michael Johnson, who won in a season's best 43.68. But this is the point in the year where European athletes diverge from the international circuit, and in European terms, Britain's 400m runners are ahead of the pack.
Edwards has even more reason to be confident after a performance in which he produced a best effort of 17.75m, his second furthest this year. The result, against a field which included all his major rivals, confirmed him as the world's top triple jumper.
After the anticlimax of his competition in Monte Carlo, where he failed to register a distance, he jumped in a disciplined and consistent fashion, recording a mark in five of his six attempts and reporting no recurrence of the ankle problem that has troubled him periodically in recent months.
Edwards remarked afterwards that his performance in Monaco had been caused by mis-measuring his run-up by three feet throughout the competition. Assuming this physics graduate can get his maths sorted out, Budapest has golden possibilities for him.
Not all the Brits prospered in Zurich, however. Tony Jarrett, hoping to put Colin Jackson under pressure in the high hurdles next week, fell at the last barrier as he struggled to keep in touch with the Americans who finished in the first three places.
In the 100m, all the young contenders - Darren Campbell, Christian Malcolm, Dwain Chambers and Marlon Devonish - were outclassed, failing to reach the final.
Malcolm, newly installed as the world junior champion at 100m and 200m finished seventh in his heat in 10.39. He, however, has already peaked for the season. The other three are hoping to do so next week.
Overall, it was a stern lesson for Britain's young generation of sprinters on the track where Linford Christie made a habit of beating the world's best. But then the world's best sprinters will not be in Budapest - not a single European reached Wednesday's final.
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