Bucks Sport
Amersham star set for World Indoor Championships
5:30pm Wednesday 22nd February 2012
AMERSHAM’S Nicola Sanders confirmed her seat on the plane to Istanbul for the World Indoor Athletics Championships with just hours to spare last weekend.
The former 400m world silver medalist ran her quickest lap for months on Sunday to shoot up to second in the UK rankings and give the selectors a timely nudge just hours before they named the UK squad going to Turkey.
However, it hadn’t looked great for her a day earlier.
Competing at the Aviva Grand Prix at Birmingham’s NIA, Sanders finished third Briton and fourth overall in a time of 53.21 seconds.
Although it was under the 53.25 qualifying time for the Indoor Championships, it wasn’t the time she was hoping for so she stayed in Birmingham overnight and ran again on Sunday in the Midlands Open Meet when she sliced almost a second off her time to stop the clock on 52.48 seconds.
Speaking on twitter, she said: “It was nice to get a decent time before getting back into training.”
However, it wasn’t good enough to earn her a individual spot in the GB squad, although she is in the 4x400m relay team alongside Shana Cox, Nadine Okyere, Christine Ohuruogu, Perri Shakes-Drayton and Laura Langowski.