Athletics: Glasgow 2014 athlete Nick Percy became the first Scottish man in history to break the 60m mark in the discus with a colossal 60.49m to win the Husker Spring Invitational in Nebraska, USA. Competing for the University of Nebraska, where he has been a student for the past 18 months, the 21 year old hit 60m not once, but twice. His record breaking throw came in the third round, to win the competition comfortably from Payton Otterdahl of North Dakota State, before his fifth round effort landed at exactly 60m in an outstanding series of throws.
While delighted with the distance, Percy admitted it came as a surprise after struggling with a calf problem through last week.
“This weekend was a shock,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting to break 60m but I knew that, at some point, I could break the national record. Earlier in the week I hurt my left calf. I could hardly walk on it, but I managed to get healthy enough to throw with some supportive tape.
“For the rest of the year I’d like to possibly challenge the European Championships qualifying standard at 63m in the discus and would like to break 70m in the hammer, but my main aims are the British Championships, the British U23 Championships and the Scottish National Championships.”
The mark adds almost two metres to his previous personal best and betters fellow Team Scotland Glasgow 2014 competitor Angus McInroy’s national record of 58.77m set in 2010.
In a fantastic weekend for Scottish throws, IPC World Champion Jo Butterfield claimed an unofficial world record at the scottishathletics Throws Grand Prix at Livingston in the F51 Club Throw. Her distance of 22.21m added two centimetres to her best, set last September and augers well for the Rio 2016 Paralympics.
Gymnastics: Known for rising to the big occasion with Commonwealth, European, World and Olympic medals as evidence, Daniel Purvis once again produced when it counted at the British Championships, held at Liverpool’s Echo Arena. With Olympic selection looming the pressure was on to perform this weekend and Daniel responded in style with silver in the All-Around and a trio of individual apparatus medals including gold on Parallel Bars.
With World All-Around silver medallist Max Whitlock in the field, the standard of competition was always going to be high and, despite a personal best score for the year of 89.500, Purvis had to settle for silver behind Whitlock’s huge total of 92.700, a score that would have been good enough for gold at both last year’s World Championships and the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Purvis took silver on Floor behind Whitlock, the pair sharing bronze on Rings, before Purvis put in an outstanding performance on Parallel Bars to take the British title. Glasgow 2014 team mate Frank Baines took a brilliant bronze on high bar with City of Glasgow’s Shannon Archer 5th on Vault and 6th on Beam.
Thoughts will now turn to the Rio 2016 Olympics, with the Team GB gymnastics squads due to be announced in July.