Aviva Grand Prix Results

NEWS

Aviva Grand Prix Results

Preparations for the World’s continued on Saturday for Phillips and Harry...

The Aviva Grand Prix in Birmingham's NIA arena on Saturday gave both Phillips and Harry an opportunity to get in some competition practice against world class opposition prior to the World Indoor Championships in Doha.

After claiming silver last weekend at the Aviva World Indoor Trials and UK Championships, Harry's confidence was sky high and although feeling felt slightly tired, Harry managed to produced two solid runs clocking 6.62 seconds both times. Harry finished second in his heat to qualify for the final, where he finished 5^th just 0.05 seconds off the winning time set by Michael Rodgers of the USA. These results, coupled with last weeks personal best of 6.55 should see Harry secure selection for Doha, where once rested up, Harry will be looking to run even quicker and gain more valuable experience of competing amongst the world's elite.

The most eagerly anticipated event of the weekend was the men's Triple Jump, where Britain's World Champion Phillips Idowu continued his well publicised rivalry with Swede Christian Olson. The respect for each other is obvious as Olson acknowledges that Phillips is the man to beat in any triple jump competition and Idowu stated that Olson's presence adds to his ambition to perform well.

The crowd in Birmingham were not disappointed as Olsson and Idowu traded places at the top of the leader board. Phillips managed a season's best of 17.25m to finish 4^th, just 7cm short of Olson's winning jump and he admitted afterwards that he is looking forward to competing in conditions that are more conducive to his style;

‘If I can get a competition where I'm on a decent surface and can get a full approach, then you'll see the distances I can jump. I'm not worried because going into Valencia I was jumping about 17.20 and when it came to the major championship, when I could have a full approach, I jumped 17.75'.

With results to support this claim, Phillips will once again head into a major championship as a medal favourite.