A Close Up On… Birmingham

The Lowdown


The Sainsbury’s Birmingham Grand Prix is the second IAAF Diamond League meeting to be held in the United Kingdom each summer. The meeting, previously known as the British Grand Prix, was part of the IAAF’s Grand Prix series that ran until 2009 and alternated between Gateshead, in the North East of England, and Sheffield in Yorkshire.


Gateshead International Stadium hosted the inaugural IAAF Diamond League meeting in 2010, before the event relocated to its present home in Birmingham. The Alexander Stadium, the headquarters of British Athletics, is therefore one of the newer venues to welcome top class athletics, but has quickly become a popular stop in the Diamond Race.


Hometown Heroes


With the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team winning 23 medals in the recent European Athletics Championships, the home fans in Birmingham will not be short of local heroes to cheer on Sunday.


11 athletes to have won medals in Switzerland compete in Diamond Race events, including four gold medalists, while a further four compete in non-Diamond Race disciplines on the programme.


Greg Rutherford, the Olympic, European and Commonwealth champion goes in the long jump, while Tiffany Porter, Eilidh Child and Martyn Rooney compete in the 100m hurdles, 400m hurdles and 400m.


Double Olympic, World and European champion Mo Farah competes in a 2 mile race, while of particular interest to the home crowd will be young 400m sensation Matthew Hudson-Smith, who has broken 45 seconds for 400m and trains regularly at the Alexander Stadium with his club, Birchfield Harriers.


Iconic Performances


Jamaica’s Asafa Powell ran a blistering 9.77 seconds to equal his own world record on a hot day at Gateshead at the Birmingham Grand Prix’s previous incarnation back in 2006, while Gateshead was also the venue, in 2010, for Piotr Malachowski’s 69.83m discus throw, which, four years later, remains an outright IAAF Diamond League record.


More recently, Birmingham has witnessed some outstanding sprinting performances. 2012 was a particularly strong year, as the American duo Aries Merritt and Carmelita Jeter both recorded victories that are among the IAAF Diamond League’s all time top 10 performances.


Merritt scorched to a time of 12.95 seconds in the 110m hurdles, which is the ninth quickest seen since the IAAF Diamond League began, while Jeter produced a 10.81 seconds 100m for eighth on the IAAF Diamond League all time list. Both performances are among the fastest seen on British shores.





Dean Hardman for the IAAF Diamond League