GATESHEAD, England (18-Sep) -- On a sunny but blustery afternoon here on the Tyne Quayside, both Hannah England and Craig Mottram showed that they had hit their desired late-season form, winning the two distance races at the Great North CityGames, a nine-event team competition between Australia and England.
England, 23, the 2008 NCAA 1500m and indoor mile champion from Florida State University, enjoyed a relatively easy win in the women's mile as she continues to ramp up her training for next month's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. England's teammate, steeplechaser Helen Clitheroe, was the early leader from the starting point on the Newcastle Quayside on the other side of the river. England soon came up on Clitheroe's shoulder, and as the pair crossed the Swing Bridge to the Gateshead side, they had a sizable lead on the other four women in the field. England was itching to see the finish line.
"I was trying to sit in, but I kept getting impatient," England explained after the race. "I kept finding myself edging ahead of her (and saying to myself), 'no, just relax."
As they came off of the Swing Bridge, England and Clitheroe climbed the short but steep hill together, then England began to up her tempo. As the course flattened out and headed for the finish line on the Mondo track, England was already a stride ahead of her teammate. She kept up the pressure to win in 4:38, one second over Clitheroe. Australia's Erica Fountain was a distant third in 4:45.
"Really, I went a bit early," England said of her final sprint. "It felt really fast for the last 50. It's all right. Like relearning my whole body after training and getting ready for the Commonwealth."
Mottram, 30, who said that this was the last race of his season before returning to Australia, had a tougher battle on his hands. He didn't want to leave the race for the final sprint, because he knew that England's #1 miler Andy Baddeley was simply too fast. He hoped for a fast early pace, and got it from England's Chris Thompson who immediately launched to the front.
"As soon as the gun went off I realized that Thomo was going to do the dirty work for me," said Mottram who is now fully recovered from a serious Achilles injury. "So, he pushed hard into the wind both times on both of the laps, and I just waited."
After Thompson got the race rolling, there were several lead changes as both Australia's Collis Birmingham and Mitch Kealey ran briefly at the front. But coming over the Swing Bridge the second time with about half a mile to go, Mottram put in a surge up the course's only significant hill on the Gateshead side of the river.
"I knew the second time up over the two hills with about 700 to go would be tough," Mottram said. "So, I went hard up and over on the downhill and Thomo was the only one who could come with me."
Both Thompson and Baddeley responded, and one minute later it was Thompson who surged on Mottram, and took the lead again. Thompson wasn't quite sure if he was making the right move.
"When I was warming up and I said to the boys, 'I don't know how to run this, I do not know the best way of winning this,'" the fast talking Thompson recounted. He continued: "I wanted to get the space on that tricky bend (after the Swing Bridge), found myself in the lead, thought I had a bit of a gap... Then it just turned into a tough man's race. That's one of my massive strong points."
Coming onto the track for the final 150 meters, the race could have gone either way. Baddeley was too far back to use his kick, but Thompson would not relent. Mottram had to find his best speed to pull away in the final 20 meters, clocking 8:31, to Thompson's 8:32. Baddeley got third in 8:34.
Although clearly pleased with the win, Mottram acknowledged that he still had months of hard training ahead under coach Chris Wardlaw before he would be a factor in big international races again. Mottram won a bronze medal at 5000m at the IAAF World Championships in Helsinki in 2005, and the Commonwealth Games silver medal at the same distance in 2006.
"I've got a long way to go to be as good as I was a few years ago, you know" he said. "But I'm getting there I've done all the hard work. I'm putting in all the long hours. These little benefits come along the way, and they're great. But, it's not always going to go the way I want it to. You've got to enjoy the ones when they do."
As for Thompson, who won the silver medal at the European Championships 10,000m this year and is readying himself for the Commonwealth Games 5000m, he was very happy with his effort for coach Mark Rowland.
"I'm pleased," he said. "I highly rate every single guy in that field, every single one of them. To come second is like, I'm really, really chuffed. I would love to have won, but I'm really chuffed."
England's captain Andy Turner clinched the team title by winning the final event, the 110m hurdles. Under the Great North CityGames scoring system, each event winner earned a single point for their team in the race for the Great North CityGames Cup. Turner's win broke the 4-4 tie to give England the 5-4 win.
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Tomorrow's Bupa Great North Run Half-Marathon will feature Haile Gebrselassie in his Great North debut against American Dathan Ritzenhein, Morocco's Jaouad Gharib and Abderrahime Bouramdane, Kenya's Kiplimo Kimutai, Ireland's Martin Fagan and Scotland's Andrew Lemoncello. The women's race has England's Mara Yamauchi lining up against Portugal's Sara Moreira and Ana Dulce Felix, Ethiopia's Berhane Adere, and Romania's Constantina Dita.
PHOTO: Craig Mottram edges Chris Thompson at the 2010 Great North CityGames two-mile on the Tyne Quayside in Gateshead (photo by Joe Battaglia, UniversalSports.com)
"Basically, you could drive a fire truck on it," said Mayock.
To set up the track on a road surface next to the Tyne River here, a construction team installs a system of galvanized steel legs, leveling plates, and floor panels which allows for just a tiny 2mm of height difference per 100m of track distance. The floor panels have a mass of 650 kg (1430 lbs) each, and are put in place with a crane. A laser leveling device is used to make sure the surface is perfectly flat. Finally, after the nearly two-day process to install the floor is completed, a Mondo track surface is installed on top of the floor, then IAAF-certified.
"Within half an hour of doing strides, the athletes think it's just as good as a regular outdoor track," Mayock explained.
Five events --men's 100m, men's and women's 150m, men's 110m hurdles, and women's 100m hurdles-- will be contested on the track here today, while the men's two-mile and women's mile will finish on it. Spectators are invited to watch the races free of charge, and the entire event will be carried live on BBC One. Marlon Devonish, Andy Turner, and Sally Pearson are amongst the Australian and English sprint stars who will compete in a national team competition.
"It's like resurrecting athletics, really," Mayock concluded. "It's bringing athletics back to the people."
PHOTO: Final preparations are made for the 2010 Great North CityGames on the Gateshead Quayside (photo by David Monti)
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