21st August 2008

Johanna Jackson walked through torrential Beijing rain to take a British record in Thursday morning’s 20km walk final, whilst Daniel Awde started in the decathlon.

Jackson took seven seconds off her own mark set in Melbourne in February, in finishing 22nd in 1.31.33. The race was won by Russian Olga Kaniskina in 1.26.31. For Jackson, it was the ideal time to break her British record, on the biggest competition stage, and in conditions that prove to be a challenge:

"I wouldn’t have minded hot conditions, I might have picked a few more off, a few might have ‘died’ off," she said.

"But I was pleased. I’ve got a lot further to go in my training. I only started when I was 18 and I am kind of catching up on the rest of them at the moment.

"I’ve got a lot more training to do and a lot of work on my technique. Hopefully I can challenge in another four years time."

Jackson also told how she had inadvertently risked disqualification in pursuit of a new national mark.

"I had about 8k left and saw I had two cards on the board," she recalled.

"I saw the first one but you don’t worry about it until you get the second one. When I saw the second I thought ‘do I keep on pushing it?’, because I knew I was on for breaking the British record again."

Meanwhile, in a drenched Bird’s Nest stadium, GB’s only representative in the decathlon, youngster Daniel Awde started his Olympic debut with a solid 100m run. Awde, coached by Dean Macey’s former coach Greg Richards, was seventh in his heat in 11.06, a time, which put him in seventeenth after the first event on 847 points.

Onto the long jump, and Awde jumped 7.12m, to finish 18th overall, and retain his 17th place in the standings with a total of 1689 points. Athens Olympics silver medallist Brian Clay of the USA was in the gold medal position on 1994 points after two events.

The final event of the morning on day one was the shot put and it proved to be Awde’s weakest. With a best attempt of 12.03m, his effort ranked 36th of the field, and the 608 points it earned meant he slipped down the table to 31st at the close of the first session.

Brian Clay retained the lead with 2862 points. The decathlon resumes on Thursday evening with the high jump.

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