JOSH KERR obliterated his 1500 metres personal best to dip under the qualifying mark for this summer’s world championships as the Scottish prospect opened his summer season in California with a bang.
The 19-year-old, who won the American indoor collegiate title for the University of New Mexico last month, took victory at the Bryan Clay Invitational in 3:35.99– slicing over five seconds off the previous lifetime mark he set in 2016.
And the European junior champion admitted he’d set his sights on laying down an early marker for selection for London 2017.
“That was the goal at the back of my mind - now that’s checked off my list, I’ll get back into training and start racing properly,” he said. “I wasn’t shocked by it. Obviously it’s shocked a lot of people but obviously it’s a good representation of where I am now. I had a 3:41 PB and that doesn’t represent me very well so I had to show everybody what I could do.”
His Edinburgh AC club mate-mate Emily Dudgeon won the 800m at the Transatlantic Invitational in Pennsylvania in 2:08.17 while discus hope Nick Percy threw 61.27m for victory at the Tom Botts Invitational in Missouri. Olympic semi-finalist Chris O’Hare made his first appearance of 2017 with eighth place at the Boston 5K in 13:46
Elsewhere, Danny Talbot ran the quickest 200m ever by a British male at the Elite Invitational in Florida but his time of 19.86 secs was wind-assisted.
While Ojie Edoburun became only the second Briton ever to run two sub-10 seconds in one day but his best of 9.93 secs at the Clermont meeting was also outside the legal wind mark.
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