Athlete Adam Hague eyes spot in Great Britain team for Euro Championships

Adam Hague (City of Sheffield and Dearne) defends his pole vault title at the UK Indoor Championships to be held over the weekend at Birmingham.
Weekend athleticsWeekend athletics
Weekend athletics

The meeting is a trial for places in the British team for next month’s European Championships in Glasgow.

The first two will be selected as long as they have achieved the demanding qualifying standards since May 1st last year with outdoor marks counting.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The standard for the vault is 5.65 which is the height achieved by Hague when winning last year and which remains his personal best. If he falls short he has the luxury of another 5.65 set outdoors in August.

His Sheffield team mate and training partner Luke Cutts is the UK record holder with a huge 5.83, set indoors, but that was back in 2014.

He cleared 5.70 twice in 2016 and won bronze in the Commonwealth Games just 10 months ago but he has a lot to do to get back into contention.

If Andy Heyes (Hallamshire) contests the 3000 metres he faces a strong field which includes Olympic finalist Andrew Buchart, returning after injury. The qualifying target is 7:48 with Heyes just three seconds shy of that.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Sheffield Hallam student Alicia Barrett (Chesterfield) is expected to be a strong contender for the 60 metres hurdles where the qualifying time is a very tough 8.10 compared to Barrett’s best of 8.19. Barrett showed her early season form with a win in Bratislava two weeks ago.

A feature of the meeting is the appearance of controversial sprinter Dwain Chambers, on the comeback trail at the age of 40.

Meanwhile, in a quiet weekend for most cross country runners, Rotherham Harriers supply three quarters of the Northern women’s team for the Rottsellar Cross Country in Belgium.

As a result of superb runs in the Northen Championships recently, Nicola Devine, Lori Handbury and Natasha Hatswell have been selected to run for the North of England in this high class international race.