British Athletics Championships

​Morpeth Harrier Laura Weightman was forced to battle all the way to the line
to secure her Women’s 1500m place in this year’s Rio Olympics at the
British Athletics Championships at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium on Sunday 26th June.

Weightman and Dundee’s Laura Muir were neck and neck at the bell,
and were still locked together with just over 200m remaining.
At that point Muir made a determined break for home, and was never caught,
and crossed the finish line in 4m10.14s.

Meanwhile Weightman had a new battle all of her own with Wakefield’s
Charlene Thomas as the pair hurtled down the finishing straight.
With around 30m remaining Thomas put in a determined lunge to claim the vital second place,
however the braveness of Weightman saw her just manage to edge in front
as they both crossed the finish line with very little between them.
Thankfully Weightman just got the verdict she wished for, by eight hundredths of a second,
leaving Thomas very disappointed that she had just missed out.

Another Morpeth Harrier in action at the championships, and perhaps quite surprisingly was Jonny Taylor.
Less than three weeks after we reported that Taylor was very likely to miss the rest of the season,
following a serious altercation with a Police Dog whilst out training near his Tees-side home,
he made the start line for the Men’s 5000m.

Although obviously not feeling fully fit, he can be modestly pleased in the fact
that he finished ninth of the nineteen finishing athletes.
He clocked a finishing time of 14m05.45s, which was just over twenty seconds
adrift of Central AC’s Andrew Butchart, who won by nearly four seconds
from Border’s Tom Farrell, with Aldershot and Farnham’s Andy Vernon
finishing third, a further two seconds adrift.​