Ten members of double Olympic Champion Dame Kelly Holmes’ ‘On Camp with Kelly’ mentoring scheme sponsored by Norwich Union benefited from the fantastic opportunity of competing in an 800m exhibition race during the Norwich Union Glasgow Grand Prix on Sunday 3 June, one of UK Athletics flagship televised meetings.
The race was won dramatically in the last few metres by 19-year-old Linzi Snow (Woodford Green with Essex Ladies) who came from about 15 metres behind with 100 metres remaining to snatch victory from Hannah Brooks (Crawley AC). Linzi’s time of 2:06.53 was over a second quicker than her previous best and is her third personal best of the season so far as she has also twice lowered her 1500m best.
Pacemaker Jordan Kinney (Royal Sutton Coldfield) went through 400m in 62 seconds as scheduled, though the rest of the field did not go with her. When she dropped out at the bell Hannah Brooks who was leading from her Crawley club mate Dani Christmas and Aldershot Farnham & District’s Emma Pallant. With about 300 metres to go Emma passed Dani who responded and retook second place before moving onto Hannah’s shoulder. Hannah was strong enough to hold off the challenge and started to pull away with about 200 metres to go and looked set for victory until Linzi passed her just before the line. Hannah’s time of 2:06.60 for second place was less than half a second outside her lifetime best.
Emma just pipped Dani for third place on the line though both athletes were given the same time – 2:07.67. This was a new personal best for Emma by almost a second and her fourth personal best of the season at 800m and 1500m. Behind Emma, Tara Bird (Woodford Green & Essex Ladies) set her third personal best of the year with 2:08.52. Lucy Dowsett (Cambridge & Coleridge) was just outside her best with 9:09.14 in sixth with Rachel Stringer (City of Norwich) following in 2:10.70. Suzi Boast (Bedford & County) and Alex Turner (Amber Valley) ran season’s bests of 2:13.02 and 2:14.72 to finish in eighth and ninth places respectively.
After her victory Linzi said: “Beforehand it was not my plan to run the race like that but I felt terrible at the start, really weak, so I didn’t want to go out too hard. I could see the front three battling it out and I didn’t want to get involved in that and have to run wide before the home straight. With 150 metres to go I felt Tara on my shoulder and I thought ‘that’s my signal to go’ and I sprinted my heart out. I know I can definitely run quicker as I was not feeling great today.”
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