It has not always been possible to describe British sprinting as world class. There have been no shortage of times when the fast men and women of the sport have been in the doldrums.
But, currently, a Briton is the fastest man in the world: Zharnel Hughes, who has three other sub-10second men for company at this weekend’s UK Athletics Championships.
Hughes’s recent time of 9.83sec finally eclipsed Linford Christie’s 30-year-old record. The Anguillan-born Briton, who occasionally trained with Usain Bolt before the latter’s retirement, had written down the exact time before the race.
But he admitted he was still surprised to have pulled it off in New York. As he put it: “I wrote it down, but you still have to go there and do it. When I saw that exact time come up on the board, it was surreal. I wrote 9.83 down and now I’m seeing it. I’m still in shock about it, manifestation is real.”
Like Jamaican great Bolt, Hughes is a tall man — 6ft 2in — who sometimes takes time to get into his stride. In New York, he needed to pick his way through a world-class field.
There are no shortage of pretenders to eclipse the occasional pilot as British sprint champion. Next quickest is the surprise package of the British athletics scene in 2023, Eugene Amo-Dadzie.
Prior to this season, he had a best time of 10.05, now heis just one-tenth off the pace of Hughes. The 9.93sec man is a part-time accountant and, hence, has been labelled the fastest bean counter in the world. Talked back into a return to sprinting in 2018 rather than having a lifetime of regret, he has slowly climbed up the ranks.
Of that personal best in Graz, Amo-Dadzie said: “I got a really good reaction, a really good start and then it was like, ‘Do not let your foot off the gas’.
“I literally felt like I was flying. I leaned towards the line, looked over, saw the time began with a nine and went crazy. I just went mad. It was one of the best days of my life.”
Great Britain’s other two sub-10sec men this season are close friends Reece Prescod, who has recovered from an addiction to both gaming and Deliveroo during the Covid lockdown, to return to his best, and CJ Ujah, running 9.96sec in only his third track meeting since his return from his post-Tokyo Olympics doping ban.
The women are a little off the pace in global terms, but still have two sub-11sec performers already this season: Daryll Neita and Dina Asher-Smith, with Imani-Lara Lansiquot with a personal best just outside the mark of 11.03sec.
Among the world-class athletes in the field is Jazmin Sawyers, with only one woman jumping further than her seven metres during the indoor long jump season. Sawyers has made no secret of her ambition for a medal at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest next month, which is what athletes are competing for in Manchester over the course of the weekend.
Keely Hodgkinson looks to be going from strength to strength in the 800m — she extended her British two-lap record in Paris to 1min 55.77sec — and will be another eyeing a medal in Hungary.
The same can be said about Laura Muir in the 1500m, although the Scot has been coaching herself since splitting with long-term coach Andy Young.
