Dina Asher-Smith, Zharnel Hughes Win 100m Golds For Great Britain
Dina Asher-Smith, Zharnel Hughes Win 100m Golds For Great Britain
Dina-Asher Smith broke the British 100m record on the way to a gold medal run, while Zharnel Hughes led a 1-2 finish for Great Britain in the men's race.
The future is bright for British sprinting, but the present looks pretty good too.
Led by a pair of early twenty-somethings, Great Britain claimed gold in both the men’s and women’s 100m races on Tuesday at the European Championships.
Dina Asher-Smith, 22, has grown accustomed to big races, the by-product of early success that launched her into World Championship finals before she turned 20. But this was the best race of her career.
She exploded from the blocks and buried a field that included 200m Olympic champion, Dafne Schippers. Asher-Smith’s time of 10.85 is a British record and ties her for the fastest mark of 2018. Schippers never recovered from a lackluster start, taking third in 10.99 behind Gina Luckenkemper’s 10.98.
Dina Asher-Smith runs 10.85 to win the #EC2018 100m final and set a new British record! pic.twitter.com/rNjJSD197U
— FloTrack (@FloTrack) August 7, 2018
Twenty minutes later, the men took the track. The British's hopes, already promising with three finalists, got even better with the news that France’s Jimmy Vicaut was scratching the race due to injury. His 9.97 in the semifinals was the top seed and made him the prohibitive favorite for the final. Instead, his lane was empty.
Zharnel Hughes was poised to take advantage. The 23-year-old already had a good chance of taking gold in this race—even if Vicaut made it to the line.
Without him, it became a British 1-2 finish. Hughes crossed the line in 9.95, just ahead of his countryman Reece Prescod, who took second in 9.96. That was a lifetime best for Prescod, and the first time the 22-year-old broke 10 seconds in a wind-legal race. Jak Ali Harvey took third in 10.01, while Britain’s CJ Ujah ran 10.06 for fourth.
Zharnel Hughes takes the ? in the #EC2018 men's 100m final running 9.95! pic.twitter.com/lOyKK7gosZ
— FloTrack (@FloTrack) August 7, 2018
In the other final on the track that evening, France’s Morhad Amdouni ran 28:11.22 to get the victory in the 10,000m. Bashir Abdi of Belgium took silver and Yemaneberhan Crippa of Italy rounded out the medals. Defending champion Polat Kemboi Arikan of Turkey did not finish the race.
The decathlon got flipped on its head when pre-meet favorite Kevin Mayer had three fouls in the long jump, which ended his competition. With the Frenchman out of the picture, Britain’s Tim Duckworth leads the competition by 95 points over Germany’s Arthur Abele.