SPRINTER Beth Dobbin will spearhead the GB team at next weekend’s inaugural Athletics World Cup in London, where she will have the opportunity to improve further on her already impressive season.
The 24-year-old Scot, who is based in Loughborough, has burst on to the scene this year, transforming herself from a relative unknown into one of the most exciting athletes in the country.
A month ago, Dobbin broke the Scottish 200m record which had stood for 34 years and since that run, she has gone from strength-to-strength, breaking her own record another twice, most recently at the British Athletics Championships last weekend.
The Edinburgh AC athlete’s new time of 22.59 seconds, set in Birmingham a week ago, is more than 0.7 seconds faster than anything she had run going into this season and it secured her selection for the European Championships in Berlin later this summer.
But first up for Dobbin will be next weekend’s World Cup, with the sprinter being named in the 29-strong British team which will face China, France, Poland, Jamaica, South Africa, USA and Germany over the course of two days at London Stadium. Also included in the GB team is former 400m hurdles world champion Dai Greene, Olympic hammer medallist Sophie Hitchon and world and European indoor 60m hurdles champion, Andrew Pozzi.
The other Scot selected for GB is Jemma Reekie, the middle-distance runner who is a training partner of Laura Muir and who is another who has improved dramatically in recent months, including winning 1500m silver at last weekend’s British Championships, setting a new personal best of 4 minutes 9.10 seconds in the process.
However, a number of the top British athletes will be missing, including Muir, Zharnel Hughes and Dina Asher-Smith but nevertheless, plenty of world class athletes will be competing.
There is due to be a number of World and Olympic champions on show over the two days including Jamaican Olympic champion in the 100m and 200m Elaine Thompson, Frenchman Jimmy Vicaut, who is the quickest European over 100m in history and Poland’s double European 800m champion, Adam Kszczot.
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