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| |  Monday, 12 March, 2001, 16:44 GMT Brits welcome hot new talent Lewis-Francis: "Will make huge impact on British team" British 60m record holder Jason Gardener says new sprint talent Mark Lewis-Francis could help British sprinters finally end America's dominance on the track. Lewis-Francis confirmed his stature as one of the hottest property's in world sprinting by breaking the world junior 60m record on his way to a bronze medal at the World Indoor Championships in Lisbon on Sunday. "It was absolutely brilliant, an unbelievable performance," said Gardener. "Anyone who can run a world junior record and a 100m in 10.1 seconds has to be taken seriously."
He said the 18-year-old Midlander would be a huge asset to the British sprinting team, though Gardener admitted the bronze medallist would be more than a handful in their individual 100m clashes in this year's outdoor season. "Without question he will make a massive impact and make us even stronger. "If anything we now have too much talent in the squad and although it is nice we must know what to do with it. "It will be difficult enough to decide who to include and even harder agreeing on which are their best legs to run, but it is a nice position to be in." Britain were silver medal hopes in the 4x100m relay at the Sydney Olympics.
But they crashed out in the first round after a baton mix-up between Gardener and Allyn Condon, the 400m runner who was picked to give Darren Campbell as rest. Condon, Gardener, Campbell, Lewis-Francis, Dwain Chambers, Marlon Devenish as well as 200m runners Julian Golding and Christian Malcolm and even Lisbon's 400m gold medallist Daniel Caines all possibilities for a relay spot. Malcolm took silver at Lisbon to add to Caines' gold and Lewis-Francis' bronze. Lewis-Francis clocked 6.51secs to become the fastest junior ever. But he was well down on 1999 silver medallist Tim Harden, who won in a season's best 6.44secs - two-hundredths of a second ahead of fellow American Tim Montgomery. UK performance director Max Jones said: "Significantly three of the medals came from an 18-year-old and two 21-year-olds. The three of them are going to be around for a long time to come." Olympic triple jump champion Jonathan Edwards also won a silver. | |
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