It was an exciting weekend of action at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Gothenburg, with the GB team coming away with an impressive eight medals to place them second on the medal table behind Russia.
Perri Shakes-Drayton followed up Holly Bleasdale’s gold in the pole vault on Saturday with individual 400m gold on Sunday, before joining Eilidh Child, Shana Cox and Christine Ohuruogu (pictured with their medals above) a few hours later to claim women’s 4x400m relay gold too.
Speaking afterwards, she said: “I’ve had a very good day in the office. We all wanted it for each other so went out there and gave it all we could.”
“If most people had the option to do that, I would have thought they would do it. I feel so confident in my ability and I was really positive, so thought why not take the risk?”
Shakes-Drayton was just one of three GB runners who had competed earlier in the day on Sunday, making the relay team’s UK and championship record time of 3:27.56 even more impressive. More than half a second adrift, Russia finished second and Czech Republic third as the GB team ran even quicker than when they won the world indoor title in Istanbul last year.
A British one-two in the women’s 400m got the day off to a strong start for the GB team in Sweden. Shakes-Drayton and Child claimed 400m gold and silver respectively in the first track event of the day and although Shakes-Drayton went into the final as favourite, she knew that alone wouldn’t guarantee success. She needed a fast first 200m and she delivered, asserting her dominance and comfortably taking the win in a world-leading time of 50.85.
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http://en.africatopsports.com/2013/03/06/athletics-four-malagasy-in-the-mauritius-marathon/