sotherton to captain birmingham

1 June 2009

Kelly Sotherton will captain Birmingham at UKA’s forthcoming innovative Super8 athletics competition, to be held at the Cardiff International athletics stadium on 10 June.                      

The 2004 Olympic heptathlon bronze medallist, who was born on the Isle of Wight but is now based at UKA’s High Performance Centre in Birmingham and lives in the city, will guest in the shot for her adopted team.

She said: “Birmingham has been my athletics base and home for a while now so I’m really proud that they have asked me to captain them. I hope we can win it. To be the winners of the first ever event would be a brilliant start to a competition which I can see running for a long time.

“There has been a real buzz around Super8 amongst the athletes, everyone is really looking forward to it. The concept of quick, exciting modern athletics is definitely going to shake the sport up in a positive way.”

Leading British athletes are giving their full backing to the new competition structure. Already signed up to compete at the evening competition are; Olympic bronze medallist Tasha Danvers, UK Indoor 800m champion Jenny Meadows, Olympic athlete Christian Malcolm, British Javelin record holder Goldie Sayers and top UK sprinter Craig Pickering.

More big names will be announced in the coming days.

Tickets are now on sale at £5 (seating) or £3 (standing) for adults, U16s are free, provided they are accompanied by a paying adult. Tickets can be purchased at www.uka.org.uk/super8  or by calling the ticket hotline on 0844 844 0808.