Mixed emotions for Team GB athletes as they head back to the track
Ohuruogu meets Richards-Ross while Gemili and Bleasedale also in action tonight
Friday 17 August 2012
Related articles
From the deafening crucible of the 2012 Olympic Stadium, the international track-and-field roadshow moves on to the more tranquil, timeless setting of the 1912 Stockholm Olympiastadion this evening.
The resumption of the International Association of Athletics Federations' Diamond League could hardly have a more fitting setting than the historic, atmospheric arena in which the part Native American decathlete Jim Thorpe and the first of the great Flying Finns, Hannes Kolehmainen, wowed the Swedish capital with their world record feats 100 years ago.
There will be 11 new Olympic champions in action tonight, none of them British. Mo Farah and Greg Rutherford are having a break before the Birmingham Grand Prix on Sunday week. Jessica Ennis has a grand, thoroughly deserved civic homecoming in Sheffield city centre today. A new song is to be sung in her honour by a band called the Everly Pregnant Brothers.
There will be one British medal winner in action in Stockholm, though. Christine Ohuruogu runs in the 400m against the American who claimed her Olympic title 12 days ago, Sanya Richards-Ross. For the 28-year-old Stratford woman, it will be liberation time rather than a revenge mission.
"I think a lot of athletes will agree that their lives kind of stopped until London 2012 had passed," Ohuruogu said. "For me, everything stopped until Sunday, 5 August. Nothing was worth planning until after that date. Now I'm free.
"This is the first time I can actually say that I can really sit back and enjoy what I've done. I've been chasing medals and finals since 2004. I do feel I can let my hair down a bit."
After three years of injury and indifferent form, an Olympic silver was a fine achievement by Ohuruogu, even if her initial reaction was one of disappointment at having lost the one-lap crown she won in Beijing in 2008. "To have done what I did, having three years which were not that great, I should be quite happy with that," she said. "I could have come away with nothing."
Ohuruogu came away with nothing more tangible than experience from her first Olympic Games. As a 20-year-old rookie in Athens in 2004 she missed the 400m final by 0.01sec.
At the same age, Holly Bleasdale made the pole vault final in London and was disappointed to miss out on a medal. That is a measure of how far the Blackburn Harrier has come in the past 12 months.
Tonight, she faces the American Olympic champion in her event, Jenn Suhr. They also lock horns in the Birmingham Grand Prix.
"To finish sixth in my first Olympic final is pretty good," Bleasdale said. "I think due to the lack of experience I have at major championships, it wasn't the best set of conditions to contend with. But I will learn from that and next time I will able to pick my game up."
Adam Gemili also left the Games with a mixture of justifiable pride tinged with disappointment. Making the 100m semi-final was a fine achievement by the 18-year-old Blackheath Harrier, for whom the 100m in Stockholm tonight will be an opportunity to rid himself of the frustration of the 4x100m relay disqualification caused by his overeagerness in running beyond the baton exchange zone.
"The Olympics was an amazing experience for me," said Gemili, who also competes in the Birmingham meeting – at 200m. "I never thought in my wildest dreams that in eight months I would go from playing non-league football to representing my country in the biggest sporting event in the world, the Olympic Games."
Latest in Sport
Sport blogs
iBet: Rose has the ammunition for Wentworth
McDowell did brilliantly to land the World Match Play title in Bulgaria last week, but it’s a format...
by Gareth Purnell
23 May 2013 09:13 AM
Brits on fire in the wet at Le Mans!
Wow - what a weekend for British Motorcycle racing!
by Luke Wilkins
22 May 2013 05:00 AM
iBet: Bale and Rooney transfer specials
The dust is barely settling on the Premier League season and the bookies are looking to persuade us ...
by Gareth Purnell
22 May 2013 02:01 AM
- 1 'Sickening, deluded and unforgivable': Horrific attack brings terror to London’s streets
- 2 Mothers' diets may harm IQs in two-thirds of babies
- 3 Far-right French historian, 78-year-old Dominique Venner, commits suicide in Notre Dame in protest against gay marriage
- 4 Eyewitness Ingrid Loyau-Kennett gives extraordinary account of her confrontation with Woolwich attackers
- 5 Woolwich attack: The EDL might have a sinister plan as a soldier is murdered in suspected Islamic terrorist attack
Get your summer started with British Military Fitness
BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
Visit York
Find out what The Independent's resident travel expert has to say about one of the most beautiful small cities in the world
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Independent Dating
Career Services
Day In a Page
Edward VIII’s phone calls - and how MI5 bugged them
Hollywood's random acts of red-carpet kindness
Not secure any more: G4S boss heads for exit at last
How to say ‘I’m a sellout’



Comments