World Athletics Indoor Championships 2024: Great Britain's Jemma Reekie reaches 800m final
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'Perfect planning!' - GB's Reekie through to 800m final
World Athletics Indoor Championships 2024 |
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Dates: 1-3 March Venue: Emirates Arena, Glasgow |
Coverage: Watch live on BBC TV, BBC iPlayer and online; Listen to commentary on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra & BBC Sounds; Live text and video highlights on the BBC Sport website and app. |
Great Britain's Jemma Reekie continued her bid to win a first global medal by qualifying fastest for the women's 800m final at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow.
Scot Reekie, 25, judged her effort to perfection to win her semi-final in one minute 58.28 seconds and build further confidence before Sunday's medal race.
"The final will be very tough but I want [the other athletes] to know that if they are coming to win on my track, they are going to have to work hard!" Reekie told BBC Sport.
"We have taken each race as it comes. Tonight I will sit down with [my coaches] Jon [Bigg] and Sally [Gunnell] and we'll work it out together.
"But I think it will be a fast one."
In winning her semi-final, Reekie, who finished fifth at last summer's outdoor World Championships, got the better of two of her expected medal rivals to assert herself as one of the favourites for gold.
The home favourite cruised past Ethiopia's world leader Habitam Alemu in the closing stages, with 2022 world indoor bronze medallist Halimah Nakaayi finishing third.
Elsewhere during Saturday's morning session, Amy Hunt finished fifth in her women's 60m heat in 7.29 secs as she continued her comeback from a long-term injury, missing out on a place in the next round.
In Saturday's eagerly anticipated evening session, Great Britain's Josh Kerr won 3,000m gold before team-mate Molly Caudery clinched the pole vault title.
British captain Laviai Nielsen finished fourth in the women's 400m final, while Laura Muir placed fifth in the women's 3,000m.
Tentoglou threatens to quit over proposed long jump changes
Olympic and world men's long jump champion Miltiadis Tentoglou threatened to quit the sport over proposed changes to the event by World Athletics after winning gold on Saturday.
Athletics' governing body could introduce a take-off zone where jumps are measured from where an athlete's front foot takes off to their landing position, removing foul jumps in an attempt to make the event more appealing to spectators.
The Greek held off the challenge of Italian teenager Mattia Furlani to win his fourth global gold and defend the world indoor title he won in 2022.
Rising star Furlani, 19, displayed his exciting potential by matching Tentoglou's best leap of 8.22m but Tentoglou took gold thanks to a next-best mark of 8.19m.
"I consider long jump to be one of the hardest events because of the board and the accuracy you need," the 25-year-old Tentoglou said following his victory.
"You need to run like a sprinter, to hit the board perfectly, this is the difficult part of the long jump. The jump itself is easy. The hard part is the run-up.
"So if they want to remove this, the long jump would be the easiest event. If that happens, I will not do long jump any more. I will be a triple jumper."
Britain's Jazmin Sawyers and women's world champion Ivana Spanovic have also criticised the proposed change.