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Athletes and alumni from St Mary’s have seen another serious of strong performances at the London 2017 World Championships.
Alumnus Sir Mo Farah began the defence of his 5000m world title. Competing in a tough field, Sir Mo ran a time of 13:30.18 to qualify for the final as the second finisher in his heat. Sir Mo is currently the winner of Team GB’s sole medal, as he retained his 10000m title on the first day of competition as he looks to complete a quintuple double of World and Olympic titles.
Director of Sport Andrew Reid-Smith said, “I’m sure the competition will be doing everything they can to beat Mo; he’ll be confident and looking to win his eleventh consecutive global distance title.”
In the Women’s 800m, EPACC Athlete Adelle Tracy qualified for the semi-final running a personal best time of 2:00.28 to finish her heat in fourth place. Elsewhere in the Men’s 1500m, EPACC Athlete Jake Wightman qualified for his semi-final. In a tight race; Jake was amongst the front-runners for the duartion, finishing in fourth, 0.31 of a second behind first place in a time of 3:38.50.
Elsewhere, amongst the athletes who trained at St Mary’s ahead of London 2017, China’s Lijao Gong won the Gold Medal in the Women’s Shot Put, Lingwie Li won the Silver Gold Medal and Huihui Lyu won Bronze in the Women’s Javelin, whilst Changrui Xue scored a personal best of 5.82m in the Pole Vault to finish fourth.
Oregon Track Club athlete Nijel Amos competed in the men’s 800m final, finishing fifth in a time of 1:45.83, meanwhile Bowerman Track Club athlete Matthew Hughes ran a season’s best time of 8:21.84 to finish in sixth place in the men’s 3000m Steeplechase final.
Andrew Reid-Smith added, “St Mary’s has enjoyed supporting athletes from fourteen different nations who have been preparing with us for the Championships; it’s great to see so many of them performing well and winning medals.”
Overall now, athletes who have been supported by St Mary’s have won five medals at London 2017, with more making finals including China’s Su Bingtian who competed with Usain Bolt in the 100m final.