15 August 2013

Hannah England (coach: Bud Baldaro) finished fourth in the women’s 1500m final in the evening session of day six at the IAAF World Championships in Moscow.

England, who won silver in this event in Daegu two years ago, picked up several places in the home straight before clinching fourth on the line with a time of 4:04.98. The 26 year old was pleased to have backed up her 2011 result with another good showing.

She said: “I have to look at it as an achievement; especially from what happened last year, it’s good. It’s hard to watch the other girls do a lap of honour. I will have to watch the race back to see if I did as well as I could have.

“I think half of this is just relief; it’s been a stressful week, having come second before you put a lot of pressure on yourself. I am pleased with fourth; it’s very good, but you have to pinch yourself that you are in this situation being upset about fourth in the world.”

Eilidh Child (Malcolm Arnold) finished fifth in the final of the women’s 400m hurdles in a time of 54.86, with Perri Shakes-Drayton (Chris Zah) coming home in seventh with a time of 56.25. Child ran a strong race to finish just over half a second outside of the medal positions and, although she admits that her race wasn’t perfect, she was content with her performance.

Child said: “It was just a messy race. If I’d ran how I’ve been running then I would have got on that podium, but that’s just the way championships go. The times just kind of go out the window when that happens. It was alright, I’m happy enough but I’ll reflect on it better I think in the morning.”

After sustaining an injury to her left knee on the first hurdle and hitting subsequent hurdles as a result, Shakes-Drayton was unable to recover sufficiently to put herself into medal contention and was left disappointed by the way her campaign ended.

Shakes-Drayton said: “It’s not the way I would have liked to have finished. It was going so well, leading the heats and the semi. But tonight after the first bend I was just going back and back and back. So now I have to go and sort out this knee but I don’t know if I’ll actually be in the relay now.”

In the men’s high jump final, Robbie Grabarz (Fuzz Ahmed) finished in eighth place with a best height of 2.29m. After comfortable clearances at 2.20m and 2.25m, he went over on the second attempt at 2.29m but was unable to improve his season’s best to 2.32m.

Grabarz said: “That was a pretty cool competition to be honest. I think my personal best would’ve come in about fifth. It’s an incredible standard and it’s not been a fantastic season for me anyway, so eighth place is obviously disappointing for me but at the end of the day I’ll take it. I’m not jumping over the moon or anything but it’s eighth place in a World Championship final and with the run in I’ve had it’s acceptable.”

The GB & NI men’s 4x400m team safely qualified for tomorrow’s final. The team of Conrad Williams (Linford Christie), Michael Bingham (George Williams), Jamie Bowie (Piotr Haczek) and Martyn Rooney (Rana Reider) finished in second place in their heat with a time of 3:00.50, the quickest by a British team during 2013.

First leg runner Conrad Williams is confident that the team can challenge for a medal, he said: “We came out here to medal. We didn’t come out here just to have a run, so we’ve got to make sure that we dominate the race tomorrow and be well into the mix to pick up another medal.”

Martyn Rooney, who brought the team home on leg four, was also in confident mood, he said: “The guys ran fantastically well. It was a very promising run from a rusty group of athletes. We ran three dead, so I think if we’d been in any other race we would’ve qualified, so it’s a great surprise.”

Jodie Williams (Stanley Madiri) missed out on a place in the final of the women’s 200m as she ran a time of 23.21 for seventh in her semi-final. The 19 year old admits that she found it difficult to run again just hours after this morning’s first round.

She said: “It’s tough, especially when you’ve given it everything you’ve got in the morning, to come and have to do that again a few hours later. But it’s a massive learning curve for me.”

For full results from day six in Moscow please go to: http://www.iaaf.org/competitions/iaaf-world-championships/14th-iaaf-world-championships-4873/timetable/byday

In tomorrow morning’s session, Tiffany Porter (Reider) lines up in the heats of the women’s 100m hurdles, the GB & NI women’s 4x400m relay team are aiming to qualify for Saturday’s final and James Ellington (Reider), Adam Gemili (Michael Afilaka) and Delano Williams compete in the first round of the men’s 200m.

Watch tomorrow morning’s session live on BBC2 between 6.30-9.15am.

GB & NI finalists at the 2013 IAAF World Championships: