The conditions were perfect for all competitors in the stadium last night & despite suggestions of post-Olympic fatigue, the majority of athletes put on one helluva a show for the fiercely enthusiastic & knowledgeable Swiss crowd.
Arguably, the most hotly contested event of the evening was the men's long jump, which saw several of the Olympic medallists going head to head once more. However, whilst Robbie (Grabarz) managed a GB national record & PB of 2m37cm, the quality of the competition in the event at the moment was underlined by the fact that he only managed to secure third place behind Ivan Ukhov (on countback) & Ahmed Barshim who leapt to a Qatari national record, meet record & current world lead of 2m39cm. Ahmed Barshim has become such a star in his homeland that upon winning the Olympic bronze medal in London, the nation enjoyed a day of free telephone calls in his honour!!
Other notable British performances were posted by Perri (Shakes-Drayton) in the women's 400m hurdles, with a time of 53.83 s, which is just .06 s off her PB; Lawrence (Okoye), who shook off the disruption of leaving his discus & accreditation in his hotel room (necessitating a mad dash across town & a bit of sweet talking on my part to get everything to him in time to compete), to claim second place with his first throw of 65.27m; & Steve (Lewis) who managed a height of 5.80m (just 2cm off his PB) to secure third place in the pole vault competition.
In the meantime, the Jamaican sprint road show continued with Yohan (Blake) crushing the field in the 100m to run the third fastest time ever, equalling the 9.69 second dash that Tyson Gay had clocked in Shanghai 3 years ago. The King of Sprints, himself, Mr Usain Bolt opted to run in the 200m race & cruised home ahead of Churandy Martina (Netherlands) & Nickel Ashmeade (Jamaica) to record a meet record of 19.58 seconds.
For a full list of results, click on the link below:
The last couple of days back in Switzerland have been thoroughly enjoyable for me, despite the hard work & it was a warm reminder of how much I enjoyed living in this part of the world back in 2008 & 2009. However, it is now time to hop onto the coach & head back up the A1 to Geneva Airport...destination Birmingham!
