22 July 2009

Team GB have enjoyed a great start of the athletics arena as the European Youth Olympics gets underway in Tampere, Finland with two gold medals. Jenny Batten (Stroud) smashed her personal best for the second time this week to claim a stunning victory in the women’s 100m sprint.

“I’m so excited. It was a massive personal best for me and I really wasn’t expecting that, it is amazing,” said a delighted Batten shortly after the race. “I’ve always hoped I could run that quickly but everything just went for me. I had the best start I could have hoped for and my legs felt so strong at the end that I was actually pulling away. It was a really amazing race,” she added.

In the final event of Tuesday’s athletics programme, Callum Hawkins (Elderslie) brought the perfect conclusion to a tremendous day for Team GB by taking the 3000m title in fine style, much to the appreciation of the flag-waving British support in the crowd.

Back at Team GB headquarters the Scottish athlete – who won in 8:23.62 – summed up his feelings; “I’m so pleased and so proud, this is the biggest achievement of my life. Being on the podium when that flag went up was just great.”

Reflecting on the race itself he added; “We started off very fast, so I hung back, slowly worked my way up to the front and with 300m to go I kicked for home, went away from the rest and managed to keep it going all the way to the finish.”

Liam Clowes (Sandbach) narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth in the men’s 100m in 11.03 (-0.2m/s), while Katie Byres (Glossop) and Isobel Pooley (Fleet) both placed tenth in the pole vault and high jump with 3.40m and 1.70m competitions respectively.

Team GB Opening Ceremony flag bearer Abbi Carter (Hessle) successfully qualified for the women’s hammer final with 50.73m, as did Adelle Tracey (Godalming) in the women’s 800m with 2:10.93, while Georgia Atkins (Ashingdon) progressed to the semi-finals of the Women’s 100m Hurdles by finishing 2^nd in her heat in 14.01 (-0.7m/s).