National champs roundup: Maddy Shott wins British bronze, Andy Fyfe 7th in Scotland
Maddy Shott
Racewalker Madeline Shott won bronze at the British Athletics Championships during a heatwave that produced some unexpected results.
Maddie's 25:33 was almost 90 seconds down on her quickest time for 5000mW, but she can still be extremely pleased with an outdoor national medal to add to the indoor English medal she won earlier in the year.
Nick Goolab
Nick Goolab on the shoulder of Ben Connor, who would finish third behind Andy Butchart and Marc Scott. Photo: Mark Hookway
As temperatures in Birmingham passed 30 degrees, the distance events saw a number of DNFS, including our own Nick Goolab, who had stuck with the lead group in the men's 5000m for 3k but stepped off the track exhausted with around a mile to go.
Sam Ige
Sprinter Sam Ige squeezed in his 10.74 qualifying time in the final SAL meet of the season at Battersea a week earlier, but a combination of heat, headwind and a stacked field meant he was unable to make it through to the 100m semifinal at the British Champs. An impressive leap forward and invaluable experience nonetheless.
Andy Fyfe
In Grangemouth a week earlier Andy Fyfe battled drizzle and high winds in the 5000m at the Scottish Championships. Exclusively a miler until this year, Andy made his 12.5-lap debut in Highgate in April, notching 14:52. He's steadily brought that down to 14:22 for second at the Wimbledon 5k festival in August, but faced a much more tactical affair north of the border. With Andy nicely tucked in with the lead pack until half way, the race was then quickly spread out by a huge surge from Welshman Kris Jones, who would eventually win comfortably. It made for a lot of unpleasant soloists battling headwinds on the back straight, but still left our man with a very creditable 7th place - even though the 14:55 was the Dunfermline boy's slowest of the season. His rapidly improving performances over 5k have caught the eyes of national selectors this season - and we're hopeful of big things to come next year.
A post shared by Andy Fyfe (@andyfyfe) on Aug 18, 2019 at 11:53pm PDT