The Aviva GB & NI team celebrated further medal success in the final session at the World indoors at the Atakoy Athletics Arena in Istanbul, Turkey, with an outstanding gold for the women’s 4x400m relay squad and a number of other podium finishes to round off their best ever weekend at the Championship.
Report:
The women’s 4x400m team of Shana Cox (Lloyd Cowan), Nicola Sanders (Tony Lester), Christine Ohuruogu (Lloyd Cowan), and Perri Shakes Drayton (Chris Zah) put in an amazing gold medal-winning performance to break the traditional USA and Russian dominance of this event.
Despite never having won a medal in the relay in any previous World Indoor Championships, the girls pulled together a superlative display to ensure they surprised their opponents and finished first in 3.28.76, ahead of the USA with 3:28.79 and Russia in third with 3:29.55
First leg runner Shana Cox put three rounds of the individual 400m behind her to lead them through in a strong position within the top three: ”I tried to put the girls in a really good position to fight it out come out on top,” she said.
Then it was time for Nicola Sanders to take to the track, and she held the team in place with a solid run albeit the Russian and USA runners appeared to be stretching away. She said: “My job is to stay in there, keep us in position, but then Chrissy did the job to give us a lead.”
In Sanders’ own words, it was indeed Christine Ohuruogu who made the difference for the team. With two seasons of injury woe behind her, a strong winter’s training meant that the Olympic 400m champion was in great form, and she stunned the field by taking the Aviva GB & NI quartet from third place into the lead. She said:
“I’ve been working very, very hard,” she nodded, “and it’s nice to be with the team for this.”
She then handed over the lead to Perri Shakes-Drayton, the 400m hurdles specialist renowned for her bulldoggish relay nature. She was faced with a daunting task, to keep the field behind her including World Indoor individual 400m gold medalist American Sanya Richards-Ross.
Yet when the challenge came from Richards-Ross over the final 100m, Shakes-Drayton held on, dipping dramatically over the line, and tumbling to the floor. When the photo-finish verdict came in, the team celebrated joyously.
Shakes Drayton said: “I just forgot who was in my race. I saw Chrissy move from third into first and I didn’t want to lose anything to I went out there and ran my legs off!”
There was further medal success for the team in the women’s pole vault, although Holly Bleasdale (Julien Raffalli Ebezant) was a picture of frustration as she took her first ever major championship medal at senior level, but looked as though she was good for more than her bronze medal result.
Bleasdale, 20, attempted to clear 4.75m but aborted two run-throughs before her third and final attempt failed to clear it, and finished with 4.70m as her best height of the day.
With silver going to France’s Vanessa Boslak (4.70m) and gold to Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva with 4.80m, the youngster was pleased , but reflected constructively on her day:
“I can’t believe I won bronze and I’m really pleased. But I am still annoyed with myself as I found out I got bronze when I was attempting 4.75m and I couldn’t contain it, and lost my focus,” she admitted.
“Bronze is a massive step up for me I know so I’m really chuffed, this is the first time I’ve felt really really nervous, I’ve not felt that nervous in a while and had to contain myself.”
Teammate and UK junior record holder Katie Byres (also Raffalli Ebezant), making her Aviva GB & NI senior debut following a superb indoor season, struggled to make an impact, no-heighting with three failures at 4.30m.
Elsewhere, Shara Proctor (Rana Reider) rounded off her superb indoor season form by taking home the bronze medal from the women’s long jump, in a final won by the USA’s Brittney Reese with a massive 7.23m leap.
Proctor, who fouled her first two jumps, nailed her run up in the third attempt and flew out to 6.86m, equaling her own national record and eclipsing the early lead of Russia’s Darya Klishina by just 1cm to sit in gold medal position
It didn’t last for long with USA’s Reese and Janay DeLoach pushing the 7m barrier, and eventually Reese sailing out to her gold winning distance, but it was still a great achievement for Proctor, who thrived under the pressure of the big stage:
“It was very intense. That's what I like and it made for a good competition,” she said.
“After two fouls at the beginning, I was a little nervous. But I went back, relaxed and then went and jumped 6.86m and got a little more confidence for the finals…I was just happy to be on the podium.”
