Saskia Millard was crowned as the British Universities and Colleges Sports (BUCS) Indoor Women’s 3,000m champion on Sunday at their annual indoor track and field championship at Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport, writes Geoff Jerwood.
Racing for a strong Birmingham University squad, Millard claimed a gold medal in one of the strongest events of the weekend.
She took control midway through and ran out a clear victor in a PB of 9:17.31 – only bettered by former Australian track champion Chloe Tighe and Tokyo Olympian Katie Snowden among all Harriers females.
Millard is the first Herne Hill BUCS individual gold medallist since 2018 and the club’s first indoor champion since Snowden won the 800m in 2013.
Millard has been selected to race for Great Britain Students at the FISU World University Cross Country Championships in Aveiro, Portugal on Saturday March 12.
Also at the BUCS Indoors, Annabel Hobday ran an excellent 800m heat (2:14.78) to qualify for Saturday’s semi-final. Unfortunately she was tripped up in her semi and fell when in a good position to vie for a fastest loser spot for the final and a possible PB.
Student Ore Adamson, at Texas San Antonio University, produced her best long jump of the year (6.02) in the Conference USA Indoor Championships in Alabama.
She followed up with a 12.46m triple jump on Sunday. Her triple jump ranks her fifth in the UK and second U23 woman.
Andrew Grigg took almost five minutes off his PB with 2:33.14 at the Valencia Marathon. Eric Dol improved his own PB by a similar margin (2:42.32).
Paul Calver was close to his best in 2:55.01, while Katie Rose (3:02.41) was nearly five minutes quicker than her previous fastest.
Chloe Tighe raced to a road race win in Dubai that would have been a PB 10km, but disappointingly the route was over distance by around 400m.
Her time for her first actual 10km was unofficially 33:29, but this will not count in any rankings and Tighe will now find another race in which to prove her current form to allow her to race at the Australian national championship on the track in Sydney at the start of April.
Main Pic: Saskia Millard number 1242 wins 3000m gold at the BUCS Champs in Sheffield.