Dina Asher-Smith was edged out by Shaunae Miller-Uibo in the 200m, the Bahamas star extending her incredible unbeaten run to two years. Miller-Uibo famously dove to a gold medal in the 400m at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, this race more straightforward as despite an imperfect start, she made up the ground to place first.
Asher-Smith led after a fast start to the delight of the home crowd, but was just short over the final 20 metres finishing in 22.36 (-0.4) to Miller-Uibo’s 22.24. Coming back to Birmingham for 2022, Asher-Smith will have a point to prove in the sprinting events up against more sprinting royalty in the second fastest woman of all time Elaine Thompson-Herah.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson went head-to-head with Olympic heptathlon champion Nafi Thiam (BEL) in the long-jump, proving to be one of the events of the competition as the pair could only be separated by a single centimetre after six rounds, with Thiam’s best of 6.86m beating Johnson-Thompson’s 6.85m. Thiam had to produce her very best to come out on top – jumping a new national record and bettering her all-time best by almost 20cm.
Great Britain’s pair of Johnson-Thompson and Abigail Irozuru both performed under pressure to qualify for the World Championships – with Irozuru going on to make the final and Johnson-Thompson famously placing first in Doha.
British sprinter Adam Gemili was just eight-thousandths of a second off Jamaica’s Yohan Blake in the men’s 100m final, despite being the fastest qualifier from the heats with a time of 10.08. Gemili led the Great Britain team to a silver medal at the Doha World Championships later that year, running the first leg to contribute to a new European record time of 37.36 seconds.
Thomas Young dominated in the men’s T35-T38 100m, breezing to a 11.37 first place finish. Two years on, Young would find himself Paralympic champion, taking the gold medal in the men's T38 100 metres in Tokyo.
Sophie Hahn put in an equally dominant performance, with the Paralympic, world, Commonwealth and European champion finishing in first place with a time of 12.67. A plethora of British talent made up the podium, with Olivia Breen (T38, Aston Moore, City of Portsmouth) and Kadeena Cox (T38, Matt Cullen, Sale Harriers Manchester) taking second and third.
Three years on, world-class athletics talent returns to the West Midlands for the 2022 Müller Birmingham Diamond League. The likes of Dina Asher-Smith, Andre de Grasse, Yohan Blake, Keely Hodgkinson and Josh Kerr will be on show at the newly revamped Alexander Stadium.
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