4:14pm Thursday 2nd September 2010
By Tom Pollak
St Mary’s Twickenham graduate Steph Twell warmed up for next month’s Commonwealth Games with a superb run in the women’s 5,000m in the final IAAF Diamond League meeting of the season in Brussels on Friday night.
She took 24 seconds off her previous best time for the distance as she smashed the Scottish record and lifted herself from 13th to fourth on the UK all-time list for the event.
She clocked 14:54.08 to improve on the Scottish record of 14:56.94 set by Yvonne Murray in July 1995.
Competing in the Memorial Van Damme meeting just 10 days after her 21st birthday, Twell finished 11th in a world class field. The race was won by Kenya’s Vivian Cheruiyot in 14:34.13.
Twell’s performance comes hot on the heels of the 1,500m best of 4:02.54 she set at the Diamond League match in Zurich eight days earlier and bodes well for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, which open on October 3. Twell contests both the women’s 1,500 and 5,000m for Scotland.
St Mary’s student Andrew Osagie, who has been selected to represent England in the 800m in Delhi, showed good form in the Rieti International meeting in Italy on Sunday when he clocked a personal best of 1:46.81 in finishing fourth in his race.
It lifts him to fifth place in this season’s UK rankings.
Another Commonwealth Games-bound athlete, Andy Baddeley, who trains at St Mary’s, finished 11th in a top class 1,500m race in 35.35.
Five days earlier, Baddeley finished fourth in a 1,500m race in Lille in 3:367.22.
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