David Gillick
Kate Dennison
Athletics: National records for Loughborough pair
Athletics - 6/July/2009
Loughborough University sports scholar David Gillick and pole vaulter Kate Dennison both smashed their own national records at the Meeting de Atletisimo in Madrid at the weekend.
Student Gillick clocked a time of 44.77 seconds to win the 400m and dip below the 45-second mark for the first time in his career, sealing the new Irish best.
The performance moves the 26-year-old double European indoor champion, who is coached at Loughborough by Nick Dakin, to fourth on the IAAF 2009 World rankings.
"I grabbed the European indoors gold medal here back in 2005 and now I have set my best clocking by far so definitely I like competing in Madrid,” said an up-beat Gillick.
Meanwhile Dennison improved her own British pole vault record for the third time this year with a new height of 4.56 metres.
The 25-year-old Loughborough-based athlete improved her best by a margin of just one centimetre having previously broken the mark at the European Team Championships in Leiria, Portugal last month. She finished runner-up to Russian Aleksandra Kiryashova on count-back.