Double joy as Montell Douglas takes Kathy Cook's British 100 metres record
By Tom Knight
Last Updated: 1:38am BST 18/07/2008
One of Kathy Cook's British records finally fell yesterday to a sprinter who was not even born when it was set.
Montell Douglas, the 22-year-old from Uxbridge, took advantage of a 2m/sec following wind to clock 11.05sec to win the 100 metres in Loughborough, wiping 0.05sec off the record set 27 years ago by Cook at the World Cup in Rome.
Douglas kissed the track after finishing and the gesture was appropriate. Not only had she broken Britain's longest standing individual women's track record, she had also guaranteed her inclusion in the Olympic team, which will be finalised on Saturday.
advertisementDouglas, who finished second to Jeanette Kwakye at the trials, said: "My mum said to me this week 'fly like a bird' and my physio said to me 'run like the wind'. Those two sayings have been going round my head all day and I managed to do them."
The race was Douglas' last chance to find an Olympic qualifying time. "It was now or never," she said.
Now 48 and a PE teacher in Walsall, Cook still holds the British records for 200m, 300m and 400m and remembers the race in Rome, where she finished second to the American, Evelyn Ashford.
Cook said: "I was put into the 100 metres in Rome at the last minute and I was lucky because it was fast and I got a decent start. I never got close to that time again. It's great that the record has gone."
