COVER: Laura Weightman goes No.2 on the
UK all-time 3000m rankings while, inset,
Jake Wightman (inset) wins in Watford
Images: Victah Sailer & Mark ShearmanPrefontaine Classic from Stanford – p
From humble beginnings ...
THE first Night of the 10,000m PBs was a low-key affair. In
June 2013 about 50 club runners took to the Parliament Hill
track to tackle three races over 25 laps and AW’s reporter
Alastair Aitken predicted: “It could well be a forerunner of
such events over the distance in the future.”
Eddie McGinley was the only man to break 30 minutes
that night as he clocked 29:53.37. The Annandale Strider had
risen at 5am for a flight to London to race and his reward
was a PB and a photo in AW alongside Dave Bedford (below).
In a follow-up story organiser Ben Pochee said: “The
atmosphere came to a hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck
crescendo for the ‘A’ race with Tour de France-style
cheek-to-jowl wall of noise support in lane four.”
Since then it has gone from strength to strength. It
incorporates the European Cup and the British trial for the
major championships. It is streamed live online and attracts
spectators ranging from Seb Coe to Ronnie O’Sullivan.
This Saturday you can guarantee far more men will crack
the 30-minute barrier – and the elite women could come
close too – as the north London venue will be packed with
spectators and PB-hungry athletes.
Jason Henderson,
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RESULTS & FIXTURES
46 Mannheim Junior Gala, British Grand Prix of Race Walking and
Ratingen combined events meeting
59 What’s On fixtures guide
SPOTLIGHT
26 THREE WORLD RECORDS IN 41 DAYS
Jason Henderson celebrates the 40th anniversary of Seb Coe’s
world record-breaking summer of 1979
DOHA 2019
30 Our series on reigning world champions continues with a
quickfire question and answer with Karsten Warholm
CONTENTS
n IN May 1979 I turned 10 years old and watched in horror as
my childhood team, Manchester United, were beaten 3-2 by
a last-gasp goal from Arsenal in the FA Cup final.
Like many young boys, I loved football. But later that
summer my imagination was fired by Seb Coe’s world
record-breaking spree and I kicked football into touch and
began a lifelong love affair with athletics.
This Friday marks the 40th anniversary of Coe’s ‘three
world records in 41 days’ and you can take a sprint back
down memory lane with our feature on p26-28.