Mo Farah provided the highlight of the Birmingham Grand Prix as he shattered the two mile indoor world record by almost a second. The Briton put aside his Twitter spat with fellow long-distance runner Andy Vernon to tear up the track and leave rivals Paul Koech and Bernard Lagat, securing the record with a sub-four minute mile in the second half of the race.

Farah will not attend next month’s European Indoor Championships in Prague, but will surely be one of the favourites for both the 5,000m and 10,000m at the World Championships in August, which will be held in Beijing.

Having broken the British high jump record in Sheffield, Katarina Johnson-Thompson secured another national best as she leapt to an incredible distance of 6.93m in the long jump. Despite her status as a heptathlete, there is no reason to suggest that the 22 year-old Liverpudlian could not challenge in both of these events in their own right.

Having missed both of last year’s centrepiece events, the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games, Johnson-Thompson is certainly making up for lost time. Greg Rutherford was another success story from the weekend’s action, and improved his indoor personal best four times during his victorious outing at the Barclaycard Arena.

Jenny Meadows and Nigel Levine were other home-grown athletes who excelled, triumphing in the 800m and 400m respectively. However, arguably the greatest accomplishment was that of the evergreen Kim Collins, who, despite being 38 years-old is still running as impressively as ever. He stormed to the 60m title in 6.50s, narrowly defeating British hot prospect Chijindu Ujah (6.55s).

If these athletes can continue to replicate their current form when the outdoor season commences in a few months’ time, then we have a tremendously exciting season in prospect.

 

Image courtesy of The Daily Telgraph

 

Adam LeRoux