London’s Olympic Stadium certainly lit up on Friday 24th July 2015 for Laura Weightman’s outstanding performance in the Women’s 1500m at the Diamond League Anniversary Games Meeting. Despite the incessant pouring rain and leaden skies, the Beijing bound Morpeth Harrier most effectively signed off her pre World Championships track campaign by producing her best run of the summer, when winning in front of a packed house in a time of 4m06.09s. Weightman was always prominently placed in the early stages of the three and three quarter lap event, and at the Bell went to the front but had not quite broken clear of her nearest challengers. With 200m remaining Weightman put in her final charge for home, and from that point was never in fear of losing, something which has seemed to elude her during most of her recent outings. At the finish line she possessed a comfortable winning margin over her closest rival Gabriele Grunewald of the USA, with Katie Mackey, also of the USA a little further adrift in third place. This was just the tonic that Laura required before Beijing, and the win certainly leaves her in positive mode, as she embarks on a spell of altitude training before those much targeted World Championships in late August. Afterwards when interviewed by BBC’s Phil Jones, Laura was overjoyed with her win, and felt very warmed by the crowd’s support throughout the run, and took personal delight from being back on the track in the Olympic Stadium, and sharing the limelight of the occasion alongside the likes of the legendary Usain Bolt of Jamaica, and Great Britain’s Mo Farah. |
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