The wind hurtled sideways. Thunder and lightning roared through the evening sky. Even in the back rows of this compact stadium, the biblical deluge did its utmost to drown everything in sight. And yet in the midst of this monsoon, Zharnel Hughes’s potency would simply not be washed away.
One month after capturing the British record in New York, the 27-year-old powered to victory in the men’s 100m at the UK Athletics Championships.
The time of 10.03sec in the abysmal conditions was simply astonishing. Hughes drove clear of his great rival Reece Prescod as both cemented selection for next month’s world championships in Budapest. Hailing from the island of Anguilla, Hughes has accustomed himself to Caribbean hurricanes. Helpfully, he knows how to stick, not twist.
“Come rain, sun or shine you perform regardless,” the 2018 European champion at this distance said, shrugging. “It is the slogan in Anguilla. I train in these conditions sometimes in Jamaica. But I am soaked, these conditions are the worst ever.
“It has been a long journey to get the title back I last won in 2015. I shall come back for the 200 tomorrow and hope the conditions are better. I really must thank each and every one of the crowd for watching in these terrible conditions. I will use this to get faster and become a global champion.”
Dina Asher-Smith, with the rain marginally eased, won the women’s 100m in 11.06, with Daryll Neita withdrawing. Their latest face-off over 200m is slated to add spice to bill. Drier weather is forecast.
“We had the not knowing if the race would go ahead, the waiting, going out, coming in, lightning, wind,” Asher-Smith said. “This is the first time I had to really make sure I stay focused which is good practice and lessons to be taken about how you deal with it.”
Convenience was a significant factor, Keely Hodgkinson acknowledged, in deciding to opt into this weekend rather than resting on laurels.
Competitive juices factor, too, the Olympic and world 800m silver medallist rapidly added. The 21-year-old is among a small handful of British hopefuls with global medals of recent vintage to be in effect guaranteed selection for Budapest without the triviality of these trials.
Yet here she was, comfortably winning a heat to qualify for Sunday’s final in a relatively pedestrian 2:01.16, six seconds shy of the British record she rewrote so brilliantly in Paris last month.
Now, she wants the domestic title back, having chosen an experimental excursion over 400m 12 months ago. “Last year I missed doing it,” Hodgkinson said. “Even though I was doing the 400m, it didn’t get my adrenaline up because it’s not my event. Everyone was taking it so seriously and I was like: ‘I don’t belong here.’ I like doing the British champs. It’s another title under my belt – hopefully.”
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Next weekend, she will attempt to bring the European Under-23 title home from Finland. Another chance to fine-tune before an expected rematch with her American nemesis, Athing Mu, in the Hungarian capital. “My last race, my tactics didn’t go well,” said Hodgkinson of her defeat in Lausanne in late June. “And so I have learned from that, to be more patient.”
It is a virtue Katarina Johnson-Thompson has been forced to embrace to remain stable during countless bumps in the road, including a career-threatening torn achilles in 2020. Now 30, the Liverpudlian will seek additional pointers when she doubles up in the 200m and 100m hurdles here on Sunday, qualifying for the latter final with a time of 13.51 which was her quickest in four years.
Close, it increasingly seems, to where she stood in 2019 before capturing the world title in Doha, though she is also thinking about next year’s Olympics. “Doing well this year is all part of my preparations for Paris,” she said.
