Women's update: Gold rush ends as momentum stalls in London

Sports writer

Tuesday 7 August 2012

THE joy of Super Saturday dissolved into the tears of Mournful Monday as British athletics' Olympic hopes crashed to earth last night in London.

Holly Bleasdale finished in joint sixth place. Picture: Nick Ponty

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Doug Gillon

Gold medals are traditionally the spur to further success but confidence seemed as fragile as mercury.

Scotland's Eilidh Child missed out in the semi-finals of the 400m hurdles with a performance that showed her as a pale shadow of the athlete who won Commonwealth silver in Delhi. Her time last night, 56.03, was more than a second outside her best but not even that would have sealed a place in the final for the Scot.

Perri Shakes-Drayton appeared to have survived despite being slowest to qualify on 55.19 thanks to the disqualification of the Czech Denisa Rosolova after she trailed a leg round a hurdle. But that lifeline was severed by a successful appeal. A British counter protest was thrown out.Holly Bleasdale's indoor pole vault mark of 4.87m was the best in the world this year, 4cm higher than anyone else in the field. She jumped as if carrying a rucksack last night and confidence seemed to haemorrhage from her. She went through agony, dragging another capacity 80,000 crowd through the emotional wringer with her.Haunted by the memory of her failure to record any mark at all at last year's World Championship, she seemed destined to repeat that disappointment. Ultimately, she went out having cleared only one height – almost half a metre below her best – yet finished joint-sixth.It was like watching a car crash. Bleasdale failed twice at her opening height (4.45m) and put her head in her hands, distraught. Red-faced and close to tears, there seemed little chance of survival, especially when she aborted her final attempt a third of the way up the runway. With the clock ticking down, she managed to compose herself and edged over.The reprieve was short. After two failures at the next height of 4.55 she stood, flustered, eyes switching metronomically from the runway to her coach, Julien Reffalli-Ebezant. He held up his hand to advise when the headwind dropped.Harnessing her nerves was beyond the 20-year-old Lancashire lass. When she failed Bleasdale sat, head in hands again, defeat sharp as any thorn. She doubled over as tears came, then ran to the arms of Reffalli-Ebezant, almost inconsolable.There was yet more agony as Jennifer Suhr, of the United States, took gold with 4.75m, 12cm below Bleasdale's best. Second was Cuban Yarisley Silva on the same height. World record holder Yelana Isinbayeva made 4.70m for bronze."It was really tough but I will learn from this," said Bleasdale. "I am only just 20 years old. I am looking to the future although I am heartbroken."Happily, there was GB success in heats elsewhere. Tiffany Porter– a US import who was asked by a journalist from the Daily Mail to sing the national anthem, only to decline – was eighth fastest in the first round of the 100m hurdles with 12.79. The Australian world champion Sally Pearson led the field with 12.57, which is 0.03sec slower than Jessica Ennis did in this event in the heptathlon to relieve Porter of the British record.Last year's world silver medallist, Hannah England led all three British women into the 1500m semi finals as automatic qualifiers. She was fifth fastest, with Laura Weightman 14th (4:07.29) and 2006 world runner-up Lisa Dobriskey 18th (4:13.22), and both 200m sprinters reached the semis.Russian European and world champion Yuliya Zaripova won the steeplechase in 9:06.72, and Nadzeya Ostapchuk, of Belarus took shot putt gold with a throw of 21.36m.

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Women's update: Gold rush ends as momentum stalls in London

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