sprint

Amy Hunt: British sprint star enters stardom with quadruple gold at European Athletics Championships

Hunt is not afraid to voice her bold ambitions.

Announcing that she “wants it all” before these championships, Hunt, even in these early stages of her senior career, has demonstrated a propensity to thrive on major stages, and under ever-increasing expectation.

“Four golds was the dream and perhaps dreams do come true,” said Hunt.

“It’s so beyond the bounds of my dreams that I’m just euphoric. I can’t believe it’s happening.

“I think it will sink in later, maybe on the podium. I’m just so proud of myself and the way I’ve handled this week.”

The Briton has already spoken about the big goal: repeating her sweep of the sprint golds at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

Her playlist – she creates one for every major event – is already being built as she begins to visualise how that might feel.

She will be well aware how much work there is to do. So far this year, she ranks 14th-fastest worldwide in the 200m, and 25th in the 100m. Asher-Smith’s British records, at 21.88 and 10.83 seconds respectively, remain untouched since 2019.

The next opportunity for global honours, beyond the inaugural World Ultimate Championships in September, will arrive at next year’s World Championships in Beijing.

And, once the dust has settled on a momentous week, Hunt will set about translating continental domination to glory on the sport’s biggest stages – just as British team-mate Asher-Smith achieved following her European treble in 2018.

“Amy has already won world silver, but she was not a favourite then,” Jackson said.

“Now, it’s a big change. She is a champion and she has to go and take on the best in the world.

“Is it going to be easy? No. But this will fill Amy with confidence. She will be on start lines trusting her ability is great, and I’m hoping that she will go from strength and strength.”

Source link

British Grand Prix: Kimi Antonelli passes Lewis Hamilton to win Silverstone sprint race

Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli caught and passed Lewis Hamilton to win an action-packed sprint race at the British Grand Prix.

While McLaren’s Lando Norris, Mercedes’ George Russell and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen staged a frantic place-swapping scrap in the opening laps at Silverstone, Antonelli bided his time before homing in on Hamilton at the front.

The 19-year-old Italian let the race settle down before remorselessly homing in on the Ferrari and blasting past Hamilton on the Hangar Straight on lap eight after strategically saving his battery charge.

Hamilton hung on bravely but could do nothing to stop Antonelli extending his championship lead still further to 43 points over Russell.

Behind them, Norris drove an excellent race to blast up from sixth on the grid to fourth on the first lap before passing Russell on the second lap.

There were a few hectic laps as Norris, Russell and Verstappen swapped places before Norris managed to consolidate third place and move clear of the the battle behind him.

Russell managed to pass Verstappen on lap nine before the four-time champion fell back into the clutches of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who moved past the Red Bull a lap later.

Verstappen dropped back but managed to hold off McLaren’s Oscar Piastri to take sixth.

Racing Bull’s Liam Lawson held off an attack from Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar in the closing laps as they took the final points positions.

Qualifying for Sunday’s main grand prix is at 16:00 BST on Saturday.

More to follow

Source link

Canadian Grand Prix 2026: George Russell takes pole for sprint race

George Russell bounced back after a difficult recent run to beat Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli to sprint pole at the Canadian Grand Prix.

The Briton, who is 20 points adrift of the Italian after four races this season, headed Antonelli by 0.068 seconds after being fastest on both runs in final qualifying.

Lando Norris headed an all-McLaren second row, 0.315secs off pole and 0.019secs in front of team-mate Oscar Piastri.

Ferrari and Red Bull completed a two-by-two top eight with Lewis Hamilton ahead of Charles Leclerc and then Max Verstappen in front of Isack Hadjar.

Russell came to Montreal looking to turn around what he admitted had been a “turbulent” start to the season, in which Antonelli has won three of the four grands prix so far, and he has started the weekend off well.

“It feels great after a tough Miami but I never doubted myself,” said Russell. “I always knew what I could do. This is an amazing circuit, high grip, and feels like you’re driving a proper grand prix car.”

Mercedes have a major upgrade on their car for this race and Russell said it had made a significant difference.

“It’s definitely feeling great,” he said. “The team have done a great job to bring this forward. Pleased to have it on the car and pleased to be back in P1. It’s been a little while but still a big focus for tomorrow.”

Antonelli said he had started his lap with his tyres under temperature and described his session as “messy”.

McLaren also brought an upgrade to Montreal, their second in as many races, but while it kept them within range of Mercedes it was not enough to counterbalance the effect of Mercedes on this track, where the world champions have often struggled.

Norris said: “A good surprise. After this morning, we were a little bit worried about how far off we were. More just the lack of confidence in the car.

“But we changed some things on the car and seemed to make a good improvement. I could have got more out of it, but not enough to close the gap to the guys ahead.”

Hamilton was 0.361secs off pole and 0.084secs ahead of Leclerc on a circuit where he shares the record number of wins with Michael Schumacher.

The seven-time champion was pleased with his performance, saying his decision not to go into the Ferrari simulator before this race, because of a feeling it was leading to incorrect set-up choices, had paid off.

“Probably the best qualifying session we’ve had for some time,” said Hamilton. “Great work with the engineers.

“The car felt really fantastic from P1. We made just subtle changes going into qualifying. Q1 and Q2 was looking good and then I don’t know what the others are able to turn up a bit more, but I am just happy to be in the fight.

“I was having so much fun out there, and the fact I didn’t do the sim and it was the best I felt all year. I chose a set-up we’ve not used before and its transformed the car for me.”

And Verstappen, struggling with a car he said was “jumping” at the rear, was just 0.101secs clear of tea-mate Hadjar.

“My feeling in the car was not very good,” said Verstappen. “I was struggling a lot with the ride. All over the bumps I couldn’t put my foot down. Actually my feet were even flying off the pedals and it made it very difficult to be consistent.”

Source link