Hughes gives Britain sprint hope for Worlds

UNTIL very recently you had to go back to the year of the European single market’s founding and just prior to Kylie Minogue’s fifth studio album to find a British man setting a national record in the 100m.

Now, in the year of Barbie the Movie, an attempted Russian coup and the anticipated release of Minogue’s 16th album, track and field fans have witnessed what almost felt unthinkable.

Because 30 years on from Linford Christie’s British record of 9.87 set in Stuttgart, Zharnel Hughes last month clocked a 100m time of 9.83 in New York City. At last, Britain has a new fastest man.

His hasn’t been the only eye-catching British sprinter. Eugene Amo-

Formula 1

Norris is the pick of current F1 grid, his former mentor Trevor Carlin tells Matt Hardy

YOU know that feeling when you’ve helped someone out, given them advice and seen them go on to do something special? Well that’s a feeling motorsport team manager Trevor Carlin must have daily about his roster of Formula 1 alumni.

Carlin Motorsport, founded in 1996, can lay claim to six of the current 20 F1 drivers – including the likes of Carlos Sainz Jr, Lando Norris, and George Russell – as well as former multiple world champion Sebastian Vettel and fan favourite Daniel Ricciardo.

And who does the man behind it rate the highest? Well, British rising star Lando, of course.

“Any time you put him in a car where he has to be competitive and be fast, he is fast,” Carlin tells City A.M.

“There’s a great story I tell the youngsters that drive for me. Lando did the British F4 with us in 2015, he then did the Toyota race series in New Zealand at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016.

“He then did the Renault Euro Cup in 2016 and he did some British F3 races with us. He did four different championships with three teams over a twoyear period.

“He qualified on the front row in 98 per cent of those races, over different circuits all around the world, in different weather conditions, with different setups.

“There’s no way he always had the best car but he managed to always put it on the front row. That’s not a coincidence. It’s not luck. Even if you haven’t got the best car at McLaren, he outperforms it.”

Norris finished fourth in Austria at the weekend, a best for the season, and is 10th in the 2023 driver standings.

But Carlin describes the Brit in the same sentence as world champion Max Verstappen and F1 legend Ayrton Senna. And the 60year-old can not speak highly enough of the current F1 leader from the Netherlands.

“What would be your

Dadzie, 30, who only took up sprinting four years ago, broke the 10-second barrier for the first time last month in Austria, when he clocked what was then the year’s fastest time. Whether the 2023 60m indoor national bronze medalist can continue his run of form into next month’s World Athletics Championships in Hungary remains to be seen, but there is more data on Hughes to assess how repeatable his run is. Typically a sprinter will compete in 10 to 15 races per year at the very highest level, whether that be World Championships, on the Diamond

League circuit or at national events.

This year Hughes has run eight, clocking two sub-10 times – 9.83 and 9.99. Last year he recorded four sub-10 times in 13 races, and the year prior it was one in nine. Hughes missed the 2020 season but in 2019 he clocked four sub-10s in 12 races, while in 2018 he clocked five in 12. The 27-year-old, then, has been pretty consistent and it was in 2018 where he ran the fastest wind-legal time of his career before 2023 – 9.91. That form has helped Hughes start in some of the world’s strongest fields, a factor many current and for- mer athletes cite as improving performance.

Christie, in his record-setting 1993 year, ran three sub-10 times in nine races. His two fastest of the year – the 9.89 and a 9.97 – were at the same event. He was in the zone.

Previous to Christie it was Jason Livingston with the record, a 10.09 set in 1992. That shows how far sprinting has come in 30 years. But some trends stick. Livingston was a Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers athlete, as is Hughes. And how does his time compare with performances at the World Championships?