Williams Vs Schippers At The Great Citygames Manchester
European sprint relay champion and Commonwealth Games silver medallist Jodie Williams will make her return to the Great CityGames Manchester as part of a competitive field when she takes on the 150m sprint down Deansgate on Saturday 9th May.
Williams, who has just been named as part of a Great Britain & Northern Ireland team heading for the IAAF World Relays in the Bahamas on May 2-3 had a breakthrough year in 2014.
The 22 year old from Hertfordshire claimed her first senior medals representing England at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow with a bronze in the 4x100m relay and silver over 200m, followed by another 200m silver at the European Championships in Zurich, and her first senior gold as part of the 4×100 record breaking Great Britain relay team.
A regular at Great CityGames events, she finished fourth over the 150m in Manchester on her debut in 2013, and a year later at the Great North CityGames in Newcastle she was pipped to the post by team mate Asha Philip over the same distance.
This year she will face a strong field, lining up against rival Dafne Schippers ‘the Flying Dutchwoman’ who took the European outdoor sprint double when she beat Williams to the gold medal in the 200m, as well as winning the 100m in Zurich.
As she gears up for the heptathlon this summer, Schippers will also contend the Long Jump competition at the Great CityGames against GB’s teenage heptathlon sensation Morgan Lake.
Schippers and Williams will be joined by the in-form Blackheath and Bromley AC Sprinter, Dina Asher-Smith, who took silver in the 60m at the 2015 European Indoor Championships in Prague last month.
The meeting is expected to draw a crowd of 25,000 to Manchester city centre and other stars on show include Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill, Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford, European indoor pentathlon champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson and 2015 European indoor 60m champion Richard Kilty.
The Great CityGames Manchester will be held on Saturday 9 May in Manchester City Centre and will be shown live on BBC One and BBC One HD from 13:00 – 15:00. The event is part of a weekend-long celebration of sport in the city which includes Europe’s biggest 10K event, the Morrisons Great Manchester Run on Sunday 10 May.
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