Diana Kennedy Goes Supersonic
Diana
Kennedy followed up her 2nd second place in the CSAA Cross Country
Championships at Solihull on Wednesday 14th November by coming
also placing 2nd on Saturday 17th in the Nike
Supersonic Speed Trial Final at Battersea Park.
Nike
were looking for the urban 500 fastest men and 500 fastest women in London.
They held a series of 3 heats at 3 different London
locations - Finsbury Park, Crystal Palace and the O2 Dome. The
trials were free to enter and chip timed with entrants racing on the
road over 100m to gain a qualifying time for the final. The fastest 500
men and 500 women from the series were each awarded a £200 race kit that
included limited edition Nike trainers and an i-pod and invited to contest
the final over a 1000m road circuit in Battersea Park.
The
1000m final was also chip timed with athletes released in waves
of 5 at 10 second intervals. Diana, the current Civil Service 1500m and
3000m champion, was able to put her middle distance running ability to
good effect to complete the twisting 1000m course in a time of 3.19.05 and
finish the evening with the second fastest time from a
woman. Following a TV interview Diana, as one of the top 6
placed women, was invited to the stage to much razzmatazz and introduced to British
Olympic gold medallist Mark Lewis-Francis. Unfortunately Diana missed
out by one place on winning flight tickets to anywhere in the world for herself
and 2 friends. The winner was Helen Ewing with a time of 3:11.30 and
the winner of the men's trial was Jermaine Mays in 2:47.45. The Nike
Supersonic Speed Trial was also filmed for Channel 4 and is due to be
screened early in December 2007.
John O’Shea