The sport that embodies the Olympic motto of Citius, Altius, Fortius is athletics (some of you may know it as track and field) and that's my first love given that I was a high jumper and sprinter back in the day. So it was very nice to be back at Crystal Palace yesterday for the second day of the Diamond League London meet.
On my way to my seat I stopped to congratulate the person responsible for British success at the recently concluded European Athletic Championships and urged him to tell UK Athletics to give Linford Christie a more prominent role in the lead up to 2012 as he knows how to get his athletes to medal at major championships (Mark Lewis-Francis, silver medallist in the 100m and Christian Malcolm, silver medallist in the 200m are two of the athletes Linford coaches). His response left me in no doubt as to who calls the shots at UK Athletics.
Nigeria's Blessing Okabgare, who won her 3rd 100m title at the African Athletic Championships in Nairobi a few weeks ago, shocked the second fastest women of all time, Carmelita Jeter (PB of 10.64s), in the heats and recorded a PB of 11.0s while doing so. Sadly, she was unable to repeat this success in the final, but once again Carmelita Jeter was defeated, this time by her compatriot Marshevet Myers. Allyson Felix completed the 200m/400m double but had to dig deep to secure victory in the one lap race. She intends to emulate Valerie Brisco-Hooks and Marie-José Perec, who completed this illustrious double in 1984 and 1996 respectively, in London 2012. Kenyan women are starting to make their presence felt in the 3000m steeplechase, Milkah Chemos stopped the clock at 9:22.49 which was an ACR. The Empress of Entoto aka Tirunesh Dibaba unleashed her devatasting sprint finish to secure victory in the women's 5000m, but overall Kenya secured more victories than Ethiopia. Augustine Choge wrote his name, literally, into folklore by winning the Emsley Carr Mile, the meet's last event.
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