06 Jun 2006 09:45
Mark Lewis-Francis was in winning form in last night’s Internationales Pfingstsportfest meeting in Rehlingen.
In his build-up to this weekend’s Norwich Union British Grand Prix Prix at Gateshead, the Birchfield Harrier claimed victory in a time of 10.41seconds, easily holding off the challenge of South Africa’s Sherwin Vries who clocked 10.48sec with Mark Findlay third in 10.50sec.
Nicola Sanders produced the best British performance at the German meeting however with an excellent 400m victory against world class opponents.
Sanders who showed good form in Oslo although finishing down the field there, for the second time in four days, lowered her outdoor personal best.
The WSEH athlete posted a mark of 51.47sec to beat off the challenges of Novlene Williams of Jamaica and Monique Hennagan who clocked 51.87sec and 52.38sec.
It was a good win for Sanders who has an indoor best of 50.72sec, ahead of the Commonwealth bronze medallist and the USA’s fourth placer at the last Olympics. Helen Karagounis was fifth in 54.76sec.
Abi Oyepitan the Olympic 200m finalist who missed the entire 2005 season with an achilles injury, tied for first place in her 100m race.
Oyepitan showed a spirit attitude when bouncing back from finishing last in Oslo, to share the spoils with Germany’s Marion Wagner in 11.44sec.
Tim Benjamin, Europe’s Number One last summer who like Oyepitan only returned to action in the Norwegian capital after injury prevented him competing at the Commonwealth Games, placed third in his 400m race.
The Welshman was beaten in his one lap contest by world indoor champion Alleyne Francique and Talkmore Nyongani.
Francique of Grenada crossed the line 0.36sec ahead of the Zimbabwe runner-up in 45.65sec, with Benjamin clocking 46.06sec.
Graham Hedman won the ‘C’ race in the 400m series, posting a mark of 46.45sec in front of the German pair of Bastian Swillims and Florian Seitz.
Other British results from Rehlingen included a 100m/200m double for Montell Douglas clocking 11.84 and 24.82, a 10.65 and 10.67 100m for Chris Lambert and Leon Baptiste and a 2.10m and 2.00m leap for Adam Scarr and Robbie Grabarz respectively.
Rehlingen wasn’t the only place with British Athletes competing however. Leading results from Prague courtesy of www.gbrathletics.com are as follows:
1500 7 Ed Jackson 3:46.94
3000SC 7 Stuart Stokes 8:38.81
110H 6 David Hughes 13.92/+1.3
400H 2 Rhys Williams 50.44
PV 9 Steven Lewis 5.20
w200 3 Joice Maduaka 23.53/+0.3
w800 5 Marilyn Okoro 2:03.90
w400H 1 Natasha Danvers-Smith 55.79 inside Elite standard 56.00
wPV 1 Kate Dennison 4.22 (4.02-o, 4.12-o, 4.22-xxo, 4.32-xxx) beat Development standard 4.20