13 June 2015

It was an all female affair for GB & NI athletes in New York, as the Diamond League crossed the Atlantic for the seventh leg of the 2015 series.

From a British point of view, arguably the highlight of the meet was in the 800m which saw seasons best and World Championship qualifying times from both Lynsey Sharp (coach: Rana Reider), who clocked 2:00.37 in sixth, and Jenny Meadows (Trevor Painter), with 2:00.55 in eighth.  But it was America’s Ajee Wilson who gave the dominant performance of the race, and possibly the meet, taking the win in 1:58.84, where the top four women all finished in under two minutes.

Tiffany Porter (Reider) also produced a fine performance, clocking 12.81 into a strong headwind, to take second place behind Sharika Nelvis in 12.65, in the non-Diamond race 100m hurdles.  After Porter said “I just want to get better every race. The plan is to hopefully qualify for the Worlds and then see what happens after that.”

Out in the field. Shara Proctor (Reider) continued her strong start to the season as she took on another world class field at the Icahn Stadium and finished third in the long jump with 6.72m.  Whilst in the High Jump competition, Isobel Pooley (Fuzz Ahmed) equalled her season best of 1.91m for the second time within a week, but again fell agonizingly short of the World Championships qualifying standard of 1.94m.

Hannah England (Bud Baldaro) lined up in the rarely run 1000m and came away with a PB of 2:41.04.  Earlier in the day Shana Cox (George Williams) claimed second in the 400m B race clocking 52.62.

Other notable results saw Francena McCorory run a world lead and meeting record of 49.86 in the 400m and David Rudisha made his return from injury and win the 800m clocking a SB of 1:43.58. 

There was some controversy in the men’s 100m as Keston Bledman was disqualified for a false start, but ran under protest and nearly took the win clocking 10.13, just behind Tyson Gay  in 10.12.

The final Diamond League race of the meet saw Usain Bolt line up in the 200m.  Running into the strongest headwind of the day (-2.8m/s), the Olympic champion clocked 20.29 whilst easing up over the line.

Bolt was critical of his performance and said “I wasn’t too happy with the time today, but training has been going well and I am looking forward to what the rest of the season has to bring.”

You can watch highlights of the New York IAAF Diamond League on BBC Two this Sunday 14 June at 12:45pm, with full meet results available here: http://newyork.diamondleague.com/lists_results_ny_2015/