Day Two- Afternoon Session
Ashlee Neslon (City of Stoke) secured team GB & NI's first medal of the World Junior Championships taking silver in a blistering women's 100m final. Nelson's 11.49 performance ended a day of positive performances from the young British athletes.
Sophie Hitchon (Blackburn Harriers) consolidated her encouraging performance at the World Juniors finishing in seventh place in the final with an 58.45m throw.
Hitchon, one of the youngest members of the NU GB & NI team, said: “I’m really pleased, my aim was to get to the final and get top eight and I did that so I’m pleased.”
Lynsey Sharp (Edinburgh AC) struggled at the start of her 800m semi-final. She found herself in last place for the first 400m, then managed to summon some extra strength towards the final 200m but it was just too late. She finished in sixth place with a time of 2:09.00
Progressing to the final of the women’s 800m is Alison Leonard (Blackburn Harriers) who ran an incredible race, leading the pack throughout. She crossed the line first, in 2:04.07 and goes through as fastest overall from the heats.
Ashlee Nelson (City of Stoke) confirmed that she truly is a star in the making as she ran a blistering women's 100m final, crossing the line in second place with 11.49 (-0.6m/s) and claiming team NU GB & NI's first medal of the competition. Nelson, who dominated each of the rounds leading up to this final test, was narrowly beaten by Jeneda Tarmoh (USA).
She said: "Wow! Last year the Brazilian girl beat me, but I put in a year of damn hard training and just look what's happened, it's just so good. I've set the standard now so these guys better get on the track and get some medals. Bring on the relay.
"When I saw the American girl on my left I panicked slightly but something's that happens, I'll take that on board, learn from it for next year and see what happens there.
"Rankings don't mean anything, absolutely nothing. When you get onto the track anything can happen. The American guy got disqualified yesterday in the semi, things like that just make you think 'I don't care, I'll just sit in these block till everyone else is out because I didn't come all this way to get disqualified' "
"I had a few niggles at the beginning of the week but UKA have been brilliant looking after me, all the physio's out here. Its just amazing when you've got team managers who are doing everything they can to make sure everyone on the team performs to their best."
