Annual races at Parliament Hill in London on Saturday will see Britain’s best mixing it with some of the top runners on the planet
From humble beginnings in 2013, the Night of the 10,000m PBs evolved to stage the British trials for the Olympics and world championships. As it grew, it began to incorporate the European Cup. Now, as the 2023 event is set to unfold on Saturday (May 20), Parliament Hill in north London is set to welcome the world.
Surely there has never been a more cosmopolitan line up than the one we will see this weekend. Athletes are coming from as far afield as Chile and Mexico, Burundi and Rwanda, Ethiopia and the United States in order to sample some of the “Highgate heaven” which has been orchestrated by Ben Pochee and his Highgate Harriers team in the past decade.
“It’s great they’re all coming to Parly Hill!” says Pochee, who adds that many will be staying in the salubrious setting of a Premier Inn near Hampstead Heath.
Such is the diverse nation of the entries this year, there are even a couple of athletes from South Sudan who fled their war-torn country and competed in the Tokyo Olympics as part of the IOC Refugee Team.
One of these athletes, Jamal Abdelmaji Eisa Mohammed, fled his country after militia burned down his village, killing his father, when he was just 10 years old. Since then he’s forged a career as a runner and this is not his first visit to the UK either as he ran 28:52.64 at the British Champs in Birmingham in 2021.
Another refugee athlete is Anjelina Nadai Lohalith, who also fled South Sudan as a child, sleeping rough in the bush to avoid being caught by raiders and seeking safety in Kenya before going on to compete at the 2016 and 2020 Olympics.
Night of 10,000m PBs (Mark Shearman)
Possible qualification for this summer’s World Championships in Budapest aside, there is a prize pot of £30,000 up for grabs. The event is also the second in the new On Track Nights series.
If you cannot get down to the venue to watch live, it is streamed from 3pm on the On Running, British Athletics and European Athletics YouTube channels and it is live on the BBC red button from 8pm. Keep an eye on AW’s website and social media channels for video interviews and updates too.
So who will claim the main honours on Saturday? Who will join the Night of the 10,000m PBs “hall of fame”? Here are some athletes to look out for.
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