Three of Britain’s Olympic athletics heroes have confirmed their participation in the Glasgow and Birmingham indoor legs of the world-class 2013 British Athletics Series, with Olympic bronze medallist Robbie Grabarz (coach: Fayyaz Ahmed) world indoor pole vault bronze medallist Holly Bleasdale (Dan Pfaff) and world indoor long jump bronze medallist Shara Proctor (Rana Reider) all set to compete at both events.
All three Olympic finalists will firstly grace Glasgow’s brand new Emirates Arena on Saturday 26th January for the British Athletics International Match. The Match’s unique five team format will see a Great British squad go head-to-head over an afternoon of world-class athletics with the USA, Russia, Germany and a Commonwealth Select team in the first international athletics event at the 5,000 seat arena.
The three stars will then compete at what is widely regarded as the best indoor meet in the world, the British Athletics Grand Prix at Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena (NIA) on Saturday 16th February.
All three athletes will be keen to repeat the success that they enjoyed at the two events earlier this year. Birmingham’s NIA was a particularly happy stomping ground for Grabarz, Proctor and Bleasdale, all three having beaten strong fields in front of the sell-out West Midlands crowd in February.
Bleasdale made a name for herself last winter when she vaulted to a British record 4.87m indoors and held the world best mark at one point in early 2012. She followed that up with a first major medal, bronze at the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul in March. Only just having turned 21, the Lancashire native believes that even more is in store for 2013.
“I had a really good indoor season in 2012 so I can’t wait to get back on the runway for the 2013 season,” she said. “With a great new coach in Dan Pfaff and after another hard winter of training, I would love to go even higher than the 4.87m this season and improve my British record again.
“The support for athletics has gone through the roof since the Olympics so it will be great to entertain the fans again in Glasgow and Birmingham. They should both be brilliant events.”
Grabarz, Bleasdale and Proctor will be joining Scotland’s three-time Olympian Lee McConnell (Rodger Harkins) in Glasgow, with the hometown hero announced last week as running 200m for the Commonwealth Select team at the International Match. The 34-year-old will be taking part in the world-class Glasgow event for the first time since 2006 as she focuses her attention on the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.
From: http://www.britishathletics.org.uk/media/news/december-2012/04-12-12-grabarz-bleasdale-proctor/
