Hitchon shatters UK hammer record in Bedford

Well, we've been mainly looking to Thommo to deliver the first outdoor Brittish record of the season over 10000m at Stanford, or maybe more remotely to either Brett Morse or Carl Myerscough in the discus in Irvine...

However, it is on British soil that Sophie Hitchon has come to overtake them all to the feat and submit the first entry to the books by means of a big new mark of 69.43m in the hammer in Bedford. Doing so, she erased Lorraine Shaw's eight-year-old previous best of 68.93m in 2003 at Loughborough.

I sense the writing has been on the wall that inevitably the record would fall in the hands of the World U20 champion soon but I guess hardly anyone would have predicted to arrive barely before the winter dust had been removed from the hammer ring.

Amazingly enough, Sophie's previous PB stood way below to that World U20 winning and UK U20 record of 66.01m in Monckton last July to mark a massive improvement of 3.42m, recommending that a first ever throw by a British thower over 70m could be now a matter of time. For that matter, even 72 to 73m could well look within range.

Furthermore, at this rate who could possibly argue against her rising as a potential top eight finalist next summer in London? Well done to her and looking forward to more!

UK Top 10 All-Time

1.Sophie Hitchon 69.43 (2011)
2.Lorraine Shaw 68.93 (2003)
3.Zoe Derham 68.63 (2008)
4.Shirley Webb 67.58 (2005)
5.Carrys Parry 66.31 (2008)
6.Sarah Holt 65.51 (2010)
7.Laura Doublas 64.74 (2010)
8.Lyn Sprules 63.96 (2000)
9.Liz Carter 63.61 (2000)
10.Lesley Brown 63.05 (2006)

Incidentally, Sophie Hitchon's new mark doubles as a UK U23 record as well toppling Sarah Holt's 65.33 (2009) off the top.

I've seen Sophie Hitchon's speed discussed over on the AW forum and I'm surprised that none has mentioned her extraordinary for a hammer thrower 25.6 secs over 200m into a -2.2m/sec headwind!

What a fantastic achievement by Sophie, I hope it's the first of many times she breaks this record - she deserves unreserved congratulations from friends, family, club mates and fans!

I noticed some of the comments on AW's forum about her and the record too - apparently she's too small to become a world class thrower - oh yeah too small like Fatima Whitbread was too small. This is the latest in a long line of crass and ill-mannered comments about the physique and appearance of women athletes on that forum. Katherine Endacott has got too much of a tummy despite racking up PBs last summer, Holly Bleasdale isn't in shape despite improving by 10% in one year, and Laura Samuels 'doesn't look like an athlete' despite being our best female triple jumper in a generation. I hope this sort of mean-spirited and condescending drivel doesn't become a feature of the 606 forum.