08 June 2009

Olympic pole vaulter Kate Dennison (Sale Harriers) broke the British Record at the Memorial Josefa Odlozila meeting in Prague today with a jump of 4.51m.

Her 2009 season has promised such a performance with an indoor British record of 4.46m at the Aviva Indoor Grand Prix in Birmingham in February and now this new outdoor height which is within the World Championships A qualifying standard.

A jump such as this, at this point in the season, indicates there is more to come from the Loughborough based athlete throughout the rest of the summer.

She said: “I warmed up well and was feeling really good. I knew I was in good shape in training and I would have loved to have taken the bar higher but it was a low key meeting and the crowd had almost disappeared so I decided not to because you need crowd support when you’re going for records.

“There’s a street meeting on Wednesday so I’m going to stick around in Prague for that and hopefully jump higher, then focus on the European Team Championships.

“Obviously my main focus is on the World Championships, It’s great to get the standard out of the way early so I can focus on jumping higher. I’ll need 4.50m- 4.60m to make the final so if I can jump like that before I go that would be great.”

Previous holder of the mark was Janine Whitlock who reached 4.47m in 2005.