400m hurdler Niall Flannery has expressed his feelings that the “stadium dwarfs the competition” after his victory in the 400m hurdles at the Olympic Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Flannery, who also won the event in 2010 and 2011, eased to victory with a time of 50.82 in the opening race of session five at the BUCS Outdoor Athletics.
Speaking to Label, Flannery said: “I’m reasonably happy with the time, I can’t complain about the time; it’s a good time to open up with and I’ll just move onto the next one.”
Describing his experience of the new Olympic Stadium, which was official opened on Saturday night, Flannery told Label; “It’s been alright, got a bit of feel for the atmosphere yesterday just sitting in the stands really, yesterday evening was packed. It kind of makes you want to run well but then coming out into an empty stadium its cold and obviously people aren’t really in the mood.”
“It’s more of a crowd than i would have got at Bedford unfortunately i think the stadium dwarfs the competition. It would have been nice for a few more people to be here… it’s a good stadium to run at.”
The athletics season is still young and Flannery will be aiming to hit the Olympic A standard of 49.50 seconds, starting with a good performance at the Loughborough International Athletics on May 20.
“I want to be running in it [the Olympic Stadium] when its full and the only time that’s going to happen is at the Olympics so I’ve gotta try and make sure I’m in that team.”
In the women’s event, Justine Kinney took full advantage of Meghan Beesley’s absence to win gold in a time of 58.81 seconds. The medal is Kinney’s first gold in an event which she has won BUCS silver in every year since 2009.
Speaking to Label after her victory Kinney spoke about winning in the Olympic Stadium as “amazing” before admitting “it’s a bit of a shame that it’s a little bit empty it would have been nice to have a few more people down today.”
“It would have been nice for a few more people to be here to watch but, u know, it’s a kind of inspiration to get here when there are crowds at the actual Olympics. I told myself today to just enjoy it … I did really embrace the stadium.”
Before these two golds, Loughborough were leading the male and female BUCS standings with results up to 15:20 on Sunday afternoon.
