10 March 2012

The Aviva GB & NI team celebrated further medal success on Saturday evening at the Atakoy Athletics Arena in Istanbul, Turkey, with gold, silver and bronze medals courtesy of Yamile Aldama in the triple jump, Tiffany Porter in the 60m hurdles and Dwain Chambers in the 60m.

 Aldama (Frank Attoh) produced the performance of her life to land the world indoor gold medal after a superb leap of 14.82m meant the rest of the competition were struggling to make an impact thereafter.

The rejuvenated Brit, who has continued to thrive since her solid performance in debuting for Aviva GB & NI in Daegu last year, showed just what she was capable of, and despite suffering a hamstring injury following her third jump, did not need to make any further attempts.

“I had a little bit of a problem with my hamstring so I had to take the competition round by round. But I won so I’m very happy. I think I could have gone further, but I couldn’t jump again,” she said.

“It is very difficult to explain my feelings. I’m feeling very proud and very happy and I can’t wait to go home and see my family. This is my best moment, I have had silver and bronze before but this is my first gold.”

Almost as if inspired by the early-session gold medal, Aviva GB & NI team captain Tiffany Porter (James Henry) demonstrated the leadership skills that had seen UKA Head Coach Charles Van Commenee nominate her for the captain’s armband, by recovering from a below par semi final run, to win a silver medal in the 60m hurdles final.

In the semi she had looked to be struggling with a slow start but battled hard to secure second spot in 8.03 secs, qualifying third fastest for the final later in the session.

But her final performance was faultless, executing her best possible race for a 7.94secs time, whilst drawn in the lane alongside current world champion Sally Pearson, who went on to blast to a stunning 7.73secs victory:

“I’m very excited, my semi-final didn’t go well as I’m sure you all saw, so I really had to refocus for the final,” said Porter.

“When I gave my captain’s speech I talked about how important mental focus was so I took my own advice and held my focus from the start through to the line.”

In what was the last event of the night, Dwain Chambers (self coached) may not have managed to defend his world indoor title, but was a deserving bronze medalist behind race winner Justin Gatlin and silver medalist Nesta Carter in 6.46 and 6.54 respectively.

Crossing the line in 6.60, Chambers appeared as delighted as if he had retained the title himself, and was gracious in accepting his third place finish:

“I would have liked to have won but it went to the better man and I’m just glad I showed the old boys can still do it!” he said.

“I knew there was a lot of good athletes, despite all of that I’m pleased to have been here as part of the team.

“We are all one team. We’ve got some old, we’ve got some new, we’ve got some experienced guys in the team and I think it’s great because we all sit down at dinner and talk about our experiences and how nervous we get.

“Even at my age, at 33, I still get as nervous as the youngsters do. But this is what I enjoy and I just hope I can continue to do it for a long time.”

Qualifying fairly comfortably from the earlier semi final in 6.62secs, coming second to Jamaica’s Nesta Carter who won in 6.56secs, Chambers had looked as though a medal could be in his grasp, should he perform to his best ability.

In other final action, Shana Cox (Lloyd Cowan) may have finished fifth in the women’s 400m but her PB performance of 52.13 showed she has the capacity to produce her best race when it counts.

Cox, who ran superb winning consecutive rounds to qualify for today’s final was mature in reflecting on her weekend campaign:

“I’m happy with that. I’m really happy with my performances this weekend. I’ve been working really hard and it’s been showing – I got a PB – so I’m happy,” she confirmed.

“It’s my first world championships and I’m really pleased with it.”

Finally, the men’s pole vault final featuring Steve Lewis (Dan Pfaff) demonstrated the Brit was back to his best, clearing 5.70m for fifth position, close to his recent PB clearance of 5.77m showing him more than able to recapture the consistency required to make it to the rostrum.

“I’m happy, 5.70m, it’s a good championship performance but obviously 5.80m was so close,” he said.

“I just know it’s there, I just wanted to get it out of the way today.

“I’m kind of happy but just want to go and start preparing for the Olympics now.”

Aviva GB & NI Role of honour: 4 medals, Gold 1, Silver 2, Bronze 1

Friday

Silver – Jessica Ennis – Pentathlon

Saturday

Gold – Yamile Aldama – Triple Jump

Silver – Tiffany Porter- 60m hurdles

Bronze – Dwain Chambers – 60m

Sunday’s action from the World Indoor Championships opens with action from the women’s pole vault final at 12:00 GMT.

Reports and updates covering the action 32-strong Aviva GB & NI squad are available on www.uka.org.uk and via twitter @uka_athletics  #BackTheTeam.

A full Aviva GB & NI team media guide for Istanbul 2012 can be found here for download http://www.uka.org.uk/media/event-media-guides/

For full results visit: http://www.iaaf.org/Mini/WIC12/Results/ResultsByDate.aspx