Sefton Park, Liverpool
This is the 'classic' photo which was used at the title bar for the weblog for so many months. I've finally signed myself up to Flickr and thought this would be the perfect thing to start things with. We'll see how it goes...
"Actually Priscilla -- I mean, well, it's right polite to have us up and all but down at the pub see, well, Priscilla, it's not that I shouldn't but my mates and all, I mean, Bob's your uncle, love, or he's not and still -- no, sorry, yes I'm sorry -- but you don't mind much, but no of course, well gosh, silly me, yes -- well goddammit Priscilla why yes, yes, oh excellent."Yes, that's exactly how I talk.
"Having clocked 11.17sec for 100m at the Norwich Union International in Birmingham in July, missing Cook's British record in that event by just 0.07sec, the slightly built Oyepitan, one of the featherweight breed of speed merchants, is threatening to drag British women's sprinting out of the distant past and back to the future.I don't think this is hyperbole. There is a real buzz surrounding Abi which can only grow.
"I am pleased with what I've achieved this summer," she reflected as she waited for the awards presentation for her event on Friday night. "I just want to build on it for next year. I need to get stronger and I also need to run the bend better in the 200m. I'm hanging back too much. I'm too scared of getting tired in the home straight."
The room for further improvement merely underlines the depth of Oyepitan's talent - talent that earned her the World Student Games 100m title in Beijing in 2001. After four more years under the direction of Tony Lester at the Thames Valley Athletics Centre in Eton - training in the company of Marlon Devonish, the third-leg runner in the Olympic champion 4 x 100m relay team, and Tim Benjamin, who reached the 400m semi-finals in Athens - she could well return to the Chinese capital as an Olympic medal contender in the summer of 2008.