2 March 2013

All four of the British athletes in action during the morning session at the European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg secured qualification to the next round of their events.

In the men’s pole vault, Steve Lewis (coach: Dan Pfaff, Scott Simpson) secured a first time clearance of 5.70m for a season’s best and comfortable qualification for tomorrow’s final. The 26 year old is in confident mood heading into tomorrow’s final and is looking to go near to Nick Buckfield’s indoor British record of 5.81m set in 2002.

“It was a good qualification, nice and relaxed, easy runs, so I’m pretty pumped with that. Tomorrow’s a new day, so I’ll approach it with a fresh mind-set and see what I can jump.

“If I can jump 5.70m relaxed like that, I’ve got a couple of poles in my bag. My indoor PB in 5.77m and the British record is 5.81, so it would be nice to go close to that.”

In her first senior appearance in a GB & NI vest, Lauren Howarth (Peter Riley) secured qualification for tomorrow’s 3000m final, running a time of 9:03.30. Howarth was one of three athletes to break away from the field in the final kilometre, to finish in second place behind Portugal’s Sara Moreira.

“I qualified for the final, which is what I came to do, so we’ll just see how I go from there. It’s not taken too much out of me and it’s only my third indoor race.”

Chris Tomlinson (Rana Reider) jumped 7.98m in the long jump for a 10cm season’s best to book his place in the final, which takes place tomorrow afternoon.

“I said from the start of the indoor season to not expect big distances from me – I’m a work in progress. I’ve changed coaches and I will jump big soon but I might not necessarily jump big tomorrow. But I pulled it out of the bag today.”

Asha Philip (Christine Bowmaker) ensured a perfect morning for the GB & NI team as she cruised through her 60m heat in second place with a time of 7.19 – her second fastest time of the season. The 22 year old will now have her sights set on tomorrow’s semi-final, and believes that Gothenburg hasn’t seen the best of her yet.

“The race was really good, that was my fastest opener – I’ve not really had that as it’s taken a couple of rounds to get to in previous heats.

“There’s definitely more to come from me. I feel really good – it’s all a mental thing when you’re out there, so I’m just going to go out there and run.”

The European Indoor Championships will be shown live on the BBC and BBC Online at the following times:

Saturday March 2nd: 14.30-16.30 on BBC1 and 16.30-18.00 on BBC2.
Sunday March 3rd: 10.00-11.40 on BBC2 and 15.15-18.00 BBC2.

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