11th July 2013

Gb & Ni Success Continues In Second Session In Tampere

11 July 2013

GB & NI’s good start to the European Under 23 Championships continued during the evening session of day one in Tampere, Finland.

In the only final of the day in the field, GB & NI’s Zane Duquemin (coach: John Hiller) finished in fourth place in the shot put. Duquemin threw a personal best of 19.19m in the first round to take an early lead but dropped to fourth as Jakub Szyszkowski and Dominik Witczak secured gold and silver for Poland with Mikhail Abramchuk of Belarus clinching bronze.

Just two hours earlier, Duquemin also qualified for the discus final thanks to a throw of 58.19m, the furthest in his qualifying pool and fifth overall.

GB & NI will have three representatives in the men’s 100m final as Adam Gemili (Michael Afilaka), Deji Tobais (Jonas Tawiah-Dodoo) and Samuel Osewa (Clarence Callender) all advanced beyond the semi-finals. Despite a headwind of -0.5m/s, Gemili won the first of the two semi-finals in a season’s best time of 10.18, with Osewa finishing two places behind him in third with a time of 10.54.

The second semi-final was won by Tobais who bettered his season’s best as he crossed the line in 10.27, again into a headwind of -1.1m/s. The result means that GB & NI have the two quickest qualifiers from the semi-finals, with Gemili and Tobais more than two tenths of a second clear of third ranked Grzegorz Zimniewicz of Poland.

In the women’s 100m, Jodie Williams (Stanley Madiri) and Rachel Johncock (Afilaka) also both qualified for the final. Williams won the second semi-final in a time of 11.44 to qualify as second fastest, while Johncock finished fourth in the first heat with 11.79 and made it through to tomorrow’s final as a fastest loser.

At the halfway stage in the decathlon, Ashley Bryant (Ian Grant) is in fourth place with 4147 points. Bryant added to a strong showing in the morning session by clearing 1.95m in the high jump, just one centimetre short of his personal best. The 22 year old then followed this up with a time of 48.22 for fourth place in his heat of the 400m and remains well in the hunt for the medals.

There was disappointment for James McLachlan (Denis Costello) in the long jump qualifying round; a best mark of 7.27m was not enough for the 21 year old to secure a place in tomorrow’s final.