The highs and lows of the London 2012 Anniversary Games

To mark two years since the London Olympics, the anniversary games took place in London this weekend just gone. In preparation for the event a temporary stadium was built around the horse guards parade ground and St. James’ park was transformed to accommodate a 2 mile track laid at the mall which allowed some spectators to watch events for free.

British athlete Will Sharman impressed spectators in the 110m hurdles, narrowly missing out on a three way photo finish with Ryan Wilson and Shane Braithwaite. Sharman finished 3rd place although the three athletes all achieved the same time of 13.24 seconds.

Tiffany Porter beat Australian rival Sally Pearson in the 100m hurdle while Chris Tomlinson leaped 7.94m to win the mens long jump.

Aside from the winners, British sprinter Richard Kilty was left disappointed and frustrated after failing to hear the gun go off and finishing last in his event.  He said “It was obvious, ask the other competitors, nobody heard the gun”.  Kilty saw the anniversary games as a confidence booster after saying, “This run was meant to be a confidence boost for the commonwealths and through no fault of my own it’s messed me up a little bit”. Although the race didn't go according to pan, fellow team mate Harry Aikines-Aryeetey managed to take first place with a time of 10.29 seconds.

The anniversary games were missing a few familiar faces, one of which being Olympic gold medallist, Mo Farrah. Due to injury Farrah sat out of the games in a bid to make this years commonwealth games. In a tweet from the BBC earlier last week, it was confirmed that Farrah would be fit for the commonwealth games. Long jumper Greg Rutherford was also missing from the event due to similar reasons with injury and hoping to recover in time for Glasgow 2014.

Overall the anniversary games were a great success and have been a fantastic opportunity for all athletes to practise their events prior to commonwealth games which start later this week.

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