Photos: British Athletics via Getty Images
British Athletics day one report
Rejuvenated Jax Thoirs under-scored his return to action in our sport with a fine silver medal at the Novuna UK Champs.
The VP-Glasgow athlete was competing for only the third time in six years at the Birmingham event.
But he raised the bar once again – clearing 5.45m – on a day when Para athlete Rebecca Scott savoured a silver medal after a PB run in the 60m.
William Ritchie-Moulin was fourth in the Men’s sprint hurdles final with 8.03 and Alyson Bell was sixth in the women’s 60m final. Nikki Manson was fourth in the Women’s Long Jump final with 6.20m.
Scottish athletes made it to semi-finals in events concluded on Saturday and others are through to final tomorrow,. Three Scots will feature in the Women’s 1500m final thanks to strong runs by Jemma Reekie, Beth Ansell and Erin Wallace.
Jax decided against his last couple of umps as Owen Heard was challenged to go higher – and did on his third attempt at 5.55m to win gold.
But after 5.32 in Scotland at the 4J National Open this was further improvement for the VP-Glasgow athlete who has Glasgow 2026 on his mind.
‘Training in empty tracks during Covid and not knowing when the next competition might be, I found motivation hard,’ he said.
‘My body was a bit stressed out with the whole thing so I decided to stop.
‘I was coaching young athletes and then as I did that and enjoyed that, and watching the Olympics, that fired my ambitions again. I wanted to jump again.
‘ And, of course, the Commonwealth Games are coming back to Glasgow 12 years after I competed there at Hampden. I want another shot at that and go one better than last time, when I came fourth.’
Photos: British Athletics via Getty Images
Para Scot Rebecca took silver in the Women’s 60m Para final with a PB run of 8.36 – her second PB in 24 hours.
‘I ran a PB yesterday at BUCS so I knew I had the momentum to keep it going and do it again today,’ dshe said.
‘I already had the legs moving so I just thought ‘let’s go for it’ and even if I didn’t do it, I had got the PB yesterday.
‘This is my first British Silver medal. I have two bronzes already, so this is really exciting.’
Photos: British Athletics via Getty Images
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