THE MICROPLUS UK ATHLETICS INDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS 2025... (Utilita Arena, Birmingham...) A PERSONAL VIEW...

 The Microplus UK Athletics Indoor Championships…

(Utilita Arena, Birmingham, 22nd-23rd February 2025…)

The overview…

The Championships began poorly and that is quite an understatement. The doors of the Arena (built upon what was once a car-park I used when teaching at Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery) were due to open at 10.30am on the Saturday morning. However, upon arrival just after that time, a queue had begun to form at the entrance up a flight of steps off King Edwards Road.

Nothing at all was communicated to the waiting public in a queue which lengthened constantly and it was only after I had looked at the Athletics Weekly Twitter/X account that I found out that there was a delay due to a fire problem. 

Presumably, the Arena had to be checked and made safe for athletes, staff and spectators but still there was no information forthcoming from the Arena itself. 

Time wore on but it was very fortunate that the weather was bright and sunny, as folks in the ever lengthening queues stood in decent humour and with remarkable patience, considering the poor communication provided.

Eventually, it was revealed online that the fire had been discovered in a nearby flat and was really nothing to do with the interior of the Arena at all…

However, still the spectators were kept waiting outside. The athletes must have been well irritated, especially the women sprinters, whose heats should have begun at 11.25am.

Finally, a member of staff appeared and announced in a loud voice that admission would begin shortly. That certainly didn’t happen and Athletics Weekly duly posted on X that the 60m heats had been put back to 11.55am. 

By that time, still no admission had been authorised and another message on Athletics Weekly’s X account declared that the 60m heats would begin at 12.55pm and then despite a megaphone announcement that admission would happen in five or ten minutes, it still didn’t happen.

It was around 12.20 that folks were allowed in to have their bags searched for inadmissible items, including banned food provisions and also to walk through a body scanner… 

The entrance, the rush & the buying of food…    

Incredibly, a middle-aged chap in front of me was asked to remove a penknife from his bunch of keys… I still don’t understand why someone would carry a penknife anywhere these days but at the entrance to a public event? 

Some spectators hauled large backpacks, outlawed by the regulations but although a few people were taken by surprise by the instructions bellowed by a megaphone wielding chap outside the entrance to take their large backpacks to a storage area (fee £15), somehow others certainly sneaked theirs into the Arena. Indeed, I noticed a number of people around me on both days of the Championships tucking into their own packed lunches, hence saving a good deal of money and thus displaying a good deal of common sense…  

Time was pressing but after such a long time standing outside the Arena, the toilets were desperately needed but the buying of food was a horror show…

Rushing, so as to miss none of the action we had paid to watch, we bought two burgers, two lots of fries and two bottles of water, which came to £41 and was quite extortionate. It was, as ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss once declared, 

“…a disgrace…” 

There was so little choice really and for folks with any kind of healthy dietary requirements, a long day of being rather unsustained lay ahead.

Typically, those people who had claimed their seats straight away soon rose to squeeze past others in their rows to go in search of food, whilst those who had already bought their expensive food and eaten it, then began to rise and squeeze past other settled spectators to visit the toilets. 

And so it went on…  

The athletics…

The events were well presented and the commentary provided by Katharine Merry and Geoff Wightman was invariably decent, both keeping up a cheerful demeanour for more than seven hours on the delay-stricken Saturday and around four hours on the Sunday.

MY SATURDAY VIEW...

I still recall watching Katharine Merry as a teenager sprinting at the Alexander Stadium…

MY SUNDAY VIEW...

The requested music certainly offered the commentators some moments of respite… 

The 60m sprints were exciting, only a stumble by Amy Hunt in the women’s final spoiling what would have been a really close finish with Bianca Williams. Hunt had already achieved a PB of 7.18 in her powerful semi-final race…

AMY HUNT WAVES...

Williams ran a PB of 7.19 in the final too but Welshman Nathaniel Azu, the men’s champion was a real entertainer in the 60m races, his character endearing him to many of the spectators and his form was impressive in all three of his sprint runs. 

BIANCA WILLIAMS AWAITS HER GOLD MEDAL...

AZU READY TO RUN...

The gold medal was awarded to him by Dame Denise Lewis and she beamed with laughter at Azu’s antics as she hung the medal round his neck.

AZU AWAITS HIS GOLD MEDAL...

Found an old word for an entertainer this week and it really does suit sprinter Azu: GLEEMAN…  

DENISE LEWIS IS ALL SMILES...

Credit to Georgia Hunter-Bell for taking part in the Championships, running the 1500m and winning her heat and the final comfortably, also credit to George Mills, who won the 3000m in fine style and broke the Championship record.

GEORGIA HUNTER-BELL IN HER HEAT...

There were many fine performances over the two days but although long jumper Jacob Fincham-Dukes won gold with his first leap, he soon suffered what looked like a nasty groin injury and he was unable carry on, or even attend the presentation of his gold medal. 

It was good to see Jade O’Dowda and Katarina Johnson-Thompson honing their Heptathlon skills by taking part in a couple of events but Amber Anning and Lina Nielsen provided a fine 400m final for the stadium, both powering round the boards impressively, or the ‘hills’ as Nielsen refers to them…

I was lucky to see the high jump finals close up on the Sunday and both events were spectacular, with Morgan Lake winning the women’s event by getting over 1.94m. She was pushed well by Emily Borthwick, who put up a great show in second place (1.84m) and she seemed so happy with her performance, thanking every single judge around the high jump area, as well as fully appreciating the crowd’s eager support.

The men’s event was won by 17 year-old Otis Poole from the Yate & District club, who improved his personal best of 2.09m to eventually complete a fine clearance of 2.20m. He won the performance of the day award, after Bianca Williams had won it on the Saturday for her sprint efforts.

Neil Gourley smoothly won a decent 1500m final and broke the Championship record set back in 1999, whilst the speedy Issy Boffey won the women’s 800m final in exciting style and the 3000m race for women saw Laura Muir take part, only to be beaten in a thrilling finish by Hannah Nuttall. 

In the women’s shot, para-athlete Sabrina Fortune broke the world F20 record with a throw of 15.50m and in the men’s event Scott Lincoln won a remarkable 19th title with a championship record of 20.86m…

The sprint hurdles were won by Abigail Pawlett, with a PB of 8.09 and Daniel Goriola, both races being well contested, whilst a fine surge by the elegant Justin Davies won him the men’s 800m title.

DANIEL GORIOLA AWAITS HIS REWARD...

ABI PAWLETT AWAITS HER PRIZE...

DANIEL GORIOLA LOOKS CALM AT THE START...

The final words...

Clearly, from my vantage point around Block 5 on both days, the main action from the long jump, triple jump, pole vault and shot events were a little distant to really appreciate what was happening, apart from checking replays on the busy screen. This meant that the high jump competitions were visibly more accessible to me on the Sunday and thrilling to experience.

Watching athletics live really underlines how lithe, smooth and speedy the top athletes are, something that isn’t quite so clear when watching on TV. 

Young talent was on show and many of those athletes performed with enormous credit, urged on by an enthusiastic crowd. 

One athlete, Kissiwaa Mensah was supported by her own fan club, which was good to see…

Those of us who had stood for so long outside on the first day, then sat for many hours watching the fine spectacle in rather uncomfortable seats were suddenly thrust out into a Brummie Saturday evening after 7.30pm where hordes of folks were queueing up in their glad-rags for entrance to restaurants and bars in a spectacularly lit area near Symphony Hall…

The family on my right during the Sunday events told me that they had complained in writing about the prices of the food and drinks after the previous Championships but had received no satisfactory response. I then wondered how their own lunch food had been smuggled into the Arena and I quickly looked about me, where a good number of other people were also eating their own packed lunches…

Maybe I should have packed a roll in each outer coat pocket and bags of crisps in the inside pockets to save a good deal of money and protect my bak overdraft but still, two hot-chocolate drinks actually bought cost £4.50 each and they were watery and barely drinkable…

Badly done, Utilita Arena…