Weekend Update – Adelaide, USA XC Champs, Birmingham,…

Boulder – USA XC Championships, Feb 15

Chris Derrick defended his title at the USA Cross Country Championships in Boulder, Colorado. He became the first back-to-back Champion since 2002. Also Luke Puskedra showed a great performance and finished 2nd.

Derrick said: “I feel really strong in my training, especially training at altitude at Colorado Springs. I’ve never done two-hour runs before, and now I’m doing those. I felt the guys were letting me have it, and I felt like I was in a groove, so I went.“

Albuquerque – Don Kirby Invitational, Feb 14

Christabel Nettey won the women’s long jump competition with a new Indoor-PB of 6.62m, which is also a new Canadian indoor national record. It was only her second competition in 2014.

Adelaide – Track Classic, Feb 15

It was Kim Mickle who took the win in the women’s javelin competition. In her first competition since the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, Kim was able to produce a massive throw of 66.12m, her second best throw of all times.

Alana Boyd took the win in the women’s Pole Vault, while Alex Rowe finished 2nd in the 800m.

Birmingham – Sainsbury’s Indoor Gramd Prix, Feb 15

Great Britain’s Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford enjoyed his best ever indoor season opener having not competed since the 2013 Moscow World Championships.

Rutherford, who came third with 8.00m with Russian Aleksandr Menkov taking first with 8.14m, was delighted to be in good form in front of the NIA crowd:

“Obviously I always want to win and I’m very disappointed not to win but I’ve got to be serious with these things. I came back from a massive injury last year which I was worried was going to affect the rest of my career and I’ve managed to jump three jumps better than any British athlete has done this year. I’ve got to be happy to start my season like that.”