Great performances at the Sainsbury's Indoor Grand Prix

There were some fantastic performances at one of the last major indoor athletics meetings of the year - the  Sainsbury's Indoor Grand Prix at the NIA, Birmingham.

Genzebe Dibaba (Ethiopia) providing a fitting highlight at the end of the day with a world record in the Women’s two mile race, stopping the clock at 9.00.48.

The record marked her third World Record in as many races and she lapped almost the whole field, including the first British finisher Steph Twell (Mick Woods), who worked through the field well for third in 9.42.41.

Genzebe Dibaba (Ethiopia) enjoying her World record in the Women's two-mile race with the clock stopped at 9:00.48

Greg Rutherford (GBR) on his way to third place behind Aleksandr Menkov (RUS) and Jinzhe Li (CHN) with a Personal Best of 8.00m in the Men's Long Jump.

James Dasaolu (GBR) winning the Men's 60m sprint final with a 6.50sec winning time in the final ahead of Jamaican Nesta Carter in 6.53 and crowd favourite Kim Collins in 6.55.

The semi finals had seen Frenchman Jimmy Vicaut and Dasaolu win their respective heats, with Dasaolu’s time of 6.47 the fastest in the world this year.

Foe more photos, look at: Andy Chubb Photography

Katarina Johnson-Thompson wins the Long Jump in a World qualifying distance

Following on from Saturday’s national high jump record, Johnson-Thompson (Liverpool Harriers) will have delighted her coach Mike Holmes to win the Women's Long Jump in 6.75m – a second world indoor qualifier in as many days.

 

“It was definitely the best I could have imagined. I didn’t sleep last night so I feel really tired and didn’t expect to come out and do that!” she said.

“I skipped the hurdles because I wanted to be really cautious for next weekend, I really want to qualify for the World Indoor Championships in the pentathlon. It gives me great confidence, even if I can’t get to that standard I know I can get close to it and that’s what it’s about in pentathlon; being consistent.

See more photos from the event at: Andy Chubb Photography

Katarina Johnson-Thompson breaks UK Women's High Jump Record

The Sainsbury’s British Athletics Indoor Championships saw a number of exciting head to heads as British Indoor titles were won, but the biggest highlight of Saturdays performances was undoubtedly a British Women's High Jump record performance by 2013 World Championship fourth placer Katarina Johnson-Thompson.  She simply turned on her high-jumping afterburners as she went on to clear 1.96m to surpass the national record of 1.95m shared by Dianna Davies, Jessica Ennis, Debbi Marti and Susan Moncrieff.
 

Silver-medallist Nisbet not only managed a PB, but her 1.87m clearance marked a Scottish National indoor record for the athlete already bound for the Commonwealth games as part of Team Scotland.

Liverpool Harrier Johnson-Thompson is in sizzling form this year, having already gained several PBs at the Northern Indoor Championships in January and is expected to compete in the pentathlon in Poland and will compete at the Dutch Championships next week in a bid to qualify for the event.  But in Sheffield, Johnson-Thompson - whose previous best in the high jump was 1.89m - eclipsed Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill's high jump best by two centimetres.  "It's a proud moment. I can't believe it," she said.  "I knew I was in good form because I had a good session in Loughborough last week and had a really good high jump session."

See more photos from the event at: Andy Chubb Photography

Swim 4 Leukaemia - The Roll of Honour

Here is a list of the swimmers and their times from the world-record breaking 100x100m swim at Ponds Forge on Saturday 1st February:

The Roll of Honour:
1    Oliver Coleman        81.22
2    Jazz Carlin        56.33
3    Amy Smith        54.44
4    Joe Roebuck        51.86
5    James Goddard        50.52
6    Steve Parry        55.44
7    James Hickman        53.24
8    David Hailey        55.18
9    Harry Needs        52.18
10    Becky Adlington        58.57
11    Tom Haffield        53.08
12    Lauren Quigley        54.20
13    Grant Quigley        50.52
14    Jake Tyson        50.83
15    Jack Hollis        53.09
16    Reg Lloyd        52.34
17    Adam Peaty        52.76
18    Ros Brett        59.79
19    Dean Millwain        55.65
20    Tom Litten        50.97
21    Russell Smith        52.27
22    Martin Schweizer    52.01
23    Cian Senior        53.57
24    Mike Gunning        51.41
25     Karen Pickering        62.24
26    Jess Lloyd        55.86
27    Sam Horrocks        49.10
28    Georgia Barton        56.01
29    Dan Briggs        50.21
30    Chris Steeples        54.15
31    Kyle Boyek        53.07
32    Thomas Paine        52.09
33    Shaun Muzcroft        52.18
34    Joe Elwood        51.91
35    Becky Cole        61.08
36    Ieuan Lloyd        49.17
37    Adam Frost        51.27
38    Sam Straughan        51.77
39    Georgia Davies        55.95
40    Connor Barrett        53.03
41    Callum Barrett        53.85
42    Kyle Barrett        51.13
43    Ellie Faulkner        55.44
44    Hannah Miley        56.14
45    Becky Turner        54.65
46    Adam Barrett        47.76
47    Andy Weatheritt     50.70
48    Tom Laxton        50.04
49    Claire Hague        61.82
50    Michael Jamieson    53.80
51    Neil Ferguson        56.47
52    Leo Jaggs        51.69
53    Ross Davenport        52.26
54    Fran Halsall        53.18
55    James Guy        48.79
56    Ali Crawford        51.82
57    Teddy Pender        51.77
58    James Broady        52.35
59    Ryan Borthwick        53.03
60    Sophie Smith        54.97
61    Steve King        51.09
62    Marco Loughran        52.10
63    Johnny Carlisle        51.89
64    Emma Wilkins        55.58
65    Aimee Wilmott        55.23
66    Roberto Pavoni        50.05
67    Adam Harrington        51.54
68    Andrew Willis        52.08
69    Sophie Allen        58.90
70    Sionhan O'Connor    53.79
71    Matt Johnson        52.21
72    Chris Walker-Hebborn    50.28
73    Alfie Howes        50.42
74    Callum Jarvis        50.61
75    Anne Bochmann        54.89
76    Luke Smith        53.65
77    Mike Pugh        57.14
78    Mike Taylor        55.18
79    Dan Cocking        52.78
80    Meh Tanji        53.15
81    Joe Faulkner        53.54
82    Dan Evans        51.82
83    Grant Turner        50.83
84    Ian Hulme        52.72
85    James Gibson        55.26
86    Charles Turner        52.59
87    Caitlin McClatchey    54.89
88    Liam Tancock        48.05
89    Laurence Mills        55.83
90    Gareth Mills        51.78
91    Luke Buxton        52.33
92    Ryan Flanagan        51.54
93    Max Litchfield        50.26
94    Nick Grainger        49.29
95    Jamie Shields        55.32
96    Tom Sunter        51.58
97    James Crisp        59.28
98    James Kirton        52.61
99    Braxton Timm        49.11
100    Lewis Coleman        50.54

Which, if my maths is right, gives an average of 53.4395 seconds!

Swim 4 Leukaemia make news at the Guinness World Records!

Having made the Guinness World Record books, with a 100x100m swim last weekend, the nice people at the Guinness World Records are using my photos to illustrate their article on it:
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2014/2/team-gb-swimming-stars-help-set-new-100-x-100m-relay-world-record-for-cancer-charity-54812/

Michael Jamieson for the Daily Record

Hot on the heels of the Press Association (PA) wanting to run a couple of my photos from the SWIM4LEUKAEMIA event yesterday, see Andy Chubb Photography, the Daily Record in Scotland are keen on some pictures of Michael Jamieson.....

Michael was swimmer #50 in the World Record 100x100m event at Ponds Forge, Sheffield yesterday and spoke afterwards about how much he is looking forward to competing in his home town in front of Scottish fans at the Commonwealth Games in July/August.

Swimmers smash World Record to help beat Leukaemia

Swimmers at Ponds Forge in Sheffield today smashed the World Record for 100 swimmers doing 100 metres in the pool.  The current record was 1hour 37mins 53secs, set at the Pizzey Park Sporting Complex in Miami, Queensland, Australia on 29 October 2011.

The event was organised by Lewis Coleman who was inspired to do something when in June 2012 his Mum was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.

The Record attempting team was led off by 10 year old Oliver Coleman and anchored by Lewis and was supported by some of Great Britain’s finest swimmers including 30 Olympians, Olympic Medalists, World Record Holders, World Commonwealth & European Medalists and over 50 Great Britain Internationals.

Check out the website: http://www.swim4leukaemia.com/ for more details and find out how yuo can help raise £100,000 for this amazing appeal.

More photos an be seen at: Andy Chubb Photography