Athletics: Gardiner plots new best at Muller Indoor Games

Gardiner’s best is a tantalising 4cm short, which came when he won the English title outdoors last year.

He reached 7.76m, at the UK Indoor Championships last weekend and will go again on Saturday in Birmingha,

Hallamshire’s Andy Heyes is set to compete in one of the showcase events, the 5,000m where Sir Mo Farah is expected to lay down a marker in his preparation for the World Championships in London this summer.

Heyes made the decision to compete indoors rather than over the county and has been rewarded with three top class performances over 3,000m so far this year.

Last week he clocked a personal best of 7:57 when finishing second behind City of Sheffield’s Lee Emanuel in the UK Championship.

His fastest 5,000m to date is 13:53.41, a time that is due for revision.

Sheffield’s EIS is host to the British Universities Indoor athletics championships starting today at 1pm and continuing through the weekend with 10am starts.

Some 1,200 athletes are expected to compete. It is a big weekend of sport for the students with EIS also hosting badminton.

The swimming championships and karate are at Ponds Forge, fencing at Graves Tennis Centre, trampoline at ICE Sheffield, judo at All Saints Sports College, climbing at The Climbing Works and shooting at Staveley.

Local road runners will be in action on Sunday at the Wombwell 5 mile road race starting at 10:30 am.

This popular race has attracted an entry of 300 with organisers also accepting entries on the day.