British 100m and 200m champion adds 60m title to her collection ahead of meeting with Dina Asher-Smith, while Reece Prescod also impresses on day one of the national indoor championships
Their winning times might not have been quite as blistering as recent headline-grabbing performances, but Daryll Neita and Reece Prescod convincingly lived up to their billing as favourites in the women’s and men’s 60m contests as both grabbed the first British Indoor titles of their careers in Birmingham on Saturday.
It has already been a hugely eventful indoor season for Neita, now the reigning British 100m, 200m and 60m champion, after she came incredibly close to Dina Asher-Smith’s freshly-set national record of 7.04 by running a huge PB of 7.05 in Berlin.
The two will meet each other in seven days’ time for a mouthwatering contest at the Utilita Arean for the World Indoor Tour Final, and the
26-year-old impressed again down the newly-laid sprint straight at the venue, clocking 7.17 to see off the challenge of Asha Philip’s season’s best 7.21 and the 7.30 clocked by Alisha Rees.
“I feel so good right now,” said Neita, who ran 7.37 and 7.18 in the heats and semi-finals respectively. “I came here to get the gold and run some decent times, which I think I did.”
Getty for British Athletics
That run in the German capital represented another big step forward for Neita, whose PB was 7.21 just two years ago and 7.11 this time last year. The move away from Rana Reider to work with current coach in Marco Airale, and a group which also contains Prescod and Jeremiah Azu, is clearly having an effect.
“I just know what I want and what I’m meant to achieve,” she added. “I want to run fast, I want to break records, so I’m on my way. I dropped an amazing time in Berlin, which I know I can challenge again. I’ve got that in my head, so I want go faster, but at the same time I’m happy just to come back with the gold.”
In a sport which is crying out for rivalries, the prospect of Britain’s top two facing each other is an enticing one and, though next month’s European Indoor Championships are the top priority, that imminent return to Birmingham is already on Neita’s mind.
“I know next week I’ll be ready to roll. It was good to shake the cobwebs off a bit and next week we’ll see something nice,” she said.
For her part, six-time British Indoor champion Philip put herself in contention for selection to Istanbul by putting together three…
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