
Charlie Dobson shocks Matt Hudson-Smith as British stars shine at London Diamond League
Dobson won the Diamond League final last year and while all eyes were on Olympic silver medallist Hudson-Smith, it was Dobson who swooped through to claim the win in a new personal best time of 44.14 seconds.
He said: "I really enjoyed that one. I kind of set the race up slightly different to how I'd done previously. I got to 200 a couple of tenths faster than I would normally, I hope, obviously I haven't seen the splits yet.
"I just got to the last straight and I felt really good. I thought I'd give it everything. I thought I'd catch a few of them, I didn't think I'd catch all of them."
Asked if Hudson-Smith had any words at the finish, Dobson added: "He just laughed at me. I couldn't really say much either, to be honest. I was surprised. I'll chat to him after. He's an amazing competitor.
"I love being able to race against him and I'll be honest, I love beating him."
Josh Kerr was another expected to be among the winners but, although he ran a season's best of 3.29.37, Kenya's Phanuel Koech had the measure of the reigning world champion.
Georgia Hunter-Bell produced a decisive finishing kick in the women's 800m, running a season's best of 1.56.74 to beat America's Addison Wiley, while Jemma Reekie (sixth) and Laura Muir (10th) were down the field.
Morgan Lake claimed victory in the women's high jump with a leap of 1.96m but there was disappointment for Molly Caudery in the women's pole vault as the 2024 world indoor champion cleared 4.60m, some way short of even her season's best of 4.85m, to place fifth.
Dina Asher-Smith posted her best time this year in the women's 200m, running 22.25 behind Julien Alfred, with team-mate Amy Hunt third in a new PB of 22.31.
The first British quartet of Asher-Smith, Hunt, Desiree Henry and Daryll Neita came out on top in their women's 4x100m relay, running 41.69 seconds to beat second-placed Jamaica, with the second GB entry coming home sixth.
The first men's GB team of Jeremiah Azu, Louie Hinchcliffe, Romell Glave and Zharnel Hughes ran 38.08 to finish second to a dominant Jamaican team in the men's 4x100m relay, with the second British quartet taking third.
National 400m finals yielded victories for Lewis Davey (44.91) and Victoria Ohuruogu (51.22), with Seamus Derbyshire (48.82) winning a domestic men's 400m hurdle final.
Lawrence Okoye had to settle for third in the men's discus with a throw of 67.24m behind Mykolas Alekna's meeting record of 71.70m, while the Netherlands' Femke Bol delivered a comprehensive victory in the women's 400m hurdles, as Britain's Lina Nielsen finished sixth.
Noah Lyles was defeated in first 100m since winning gold in Paris last year, running 10 seconds flat as Jamica's Oblique Seville powered home in a time of 9.86.
Kenya's Emmanuel Wanyonyi set a new meeting record of 1.42 in the men's 800m, with Britain's Max Burgin taking third with a new personal best of 1.42.36 in a race that had been billed as a world-record attempt.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Independent
26 minutes ago
- The Independent
Gazza and the slow-motion collapse that started when he was 10 years old
Last Monday, notifications from multiple media outlets and text messages from friends and colleagues started pinging into my phone. Beep. Beep. Beep. I opened the alerts to see Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne, the 58-year-old football icon and national treasure, had been rushed to hospital after being found semi-unconscious at home and was in an intensive care unit. My heart sank. Oh Paul. It was a moment I'd feared would one day happen. All the memories of my time spent with Gascoigne, making documentary films with him 10 years ago, came flooding back; all the contradictions of a man so expressive in his football play, yet so unable to articulate his many inner struggles off the pitch. People always refer to 'Gazza' as a troubled genius, but his demons were personal. And, as I was to discover, it is not surprising when you understand everything he's been through without the emotional and practical skills, or support, to deal with such extreme situations. We all know about Gascoigne's iconic status as the best midfielder of his generation. We know he won 57 caps for England and helped take our national team to the semi-finals of Euro 1996. Perhaps his most defining moment, and the one that brought 'Gazza' such extraordinary fame, was receiving a yellow card in the 1990 World Cup semi-finals, which saw him leave the pitch in tears. We also know all about his multiple off-pitch dramas that have happened since. His battle with alcoholism and drug abuse, stints in rehab, being sectioned, court cases, allegations of domestic abuse, drink-driving convictions, homelessness and mental ill-health. When I was asked to direct a documentary following his treatment for addiction in an Arizona clinic, I was enticed by the possibility of discovering the real Paul Gascoigne. At our first meeting, he was performative. He cracked jokes, messed about and gave me the public face of Gazza. But I came to realise there were two people living in Paul Gascoigne 's skin – Gazza, the cheeky national treasure and Paul the gentle and kind man struggling to make sense of internal trauma and extraordinary life experiences. Gascoigne took me to Dunston, an area in the town of Gateshead where he grew up, to meet his family. I thought he was joking (he wasn't) when he said he'd bought his mum, dad, brother and sister houses in the same street – even though then he didn't own a home of his own. The family was tight, and you could feel the love they had for each other. But Gascoigne later told me that the responsibility he felt to support his family financially, from the start of his football success at the age of 16, weighed heavily. He wasn't sure if his role within the family was as a son and brother, or as the family's breadwinner. He became unsettled. He constantly raged about how he believed that people had taken advantage of him, how he thought those employed to help him had abused him financially over the years; how people wanted Gazza, but were disappointed when they got Paul. He said he didn't trust anybody. Not his friends or family and definitely not the media, who'd fed off his fame and vulnerability. He recounted the terrible impact of being hacked by newspapers. How information he'd only shared with his closest family members ended up being front page news, causing him to cut off his family. It was a long time before he discovered they were innocent and that he had been hacked, but by then the damage to his relationship with his family had been sealed. Gascoigne started being unreliable, failing to turn up for filming and being rude and aggressive. Several times, I thought the film would have to be cancelled. But then Gascoigne called, wanting to apologise for his behaviour – and to talk. What I learned gave me an insight and understanding of a terrible childhood trauma, one which precipitated this complex man full of contradictions. The 10-year-old Paul had gone to the shops with his childhood friend Steven. He recalled them being chased out of the shop for pinching sweets and Steven running out between parked cars into the road. He was knocked down by an ice-cream truck and died in Gascoigne's arms. His grief and guilt were still palpable, and he said he still replays his friend's death in his head every day. It was an era when there was no mental health support or infrastructure and Gascoigne was left, in his own words, to 'just get on with it'. He slumped into depression, unable to sleep and developed a slot machine gambling addiction. Soon, he started displaying tics and twitches and making peculiar noises. As his football success grew, Gascoigne said his tics and twitches disappeared when he was on the pitch, but as soon as the game ended, he felt overcome, constantly thinking about death and feeling alienated from everyone around him. He masked his discomfort by becoming the eternal joker, seeking validation by making people laugh with his uproarious and, according to Gary Lineker, outlandish antics. The stories are legendary and friends and former team-mates I spoke to said he was always keen to please and easily egged on to behave inappropriately. We headed back to film in Bournemouth, where Gascoigne was living following his US rehab, and being supported by a local rehab centre. Sober, he gave talks to patients about how addiction to alcohol and cocaine abuse had ruined his life. At the height of his career, he'd been drinking whisky and downing sleeping pills in the run up to matches. He said he went from being a virtual non-drinker, who only liked the occasional pina colada cocktail, to a fully-fledged alcoholic, numbing his anxieties and inability to cope with fame and success. Once back at Gascoigne's flat, the reality of his struggles became clear. It was lunchtime and it suddenly dawned on me I'd never seen him eat a single thing in all the months we'd been filming. He always disappeared at lunchtime and suppertime and would return saying he'd eaten. I asked him why he didn't eat and he opened his kitchen cupboards to reveal hundreds of bags of cheap penny sweets, the kind you buy with pocket money when you're a kid. He said eating sweets as his main source of food was the only way to keep his weight down. Gascoigne then went on to describe his lifelong struggle with his weight during his football career. He was often chastised by managers, fans and the media for being overweight and developed an eating disorder that saw him develop bulimia and purge before matches. He recalled that opposing fans would throw Mars bars onto the pitch when he was playing and chant 'you fat bast***' every time he touched the ball. He was also addicted to Botox and said he couldn't face the world if he didn't feel suitably 'botoxed'. Gascoigne's battle with OCD was evident on a daily basis. He would need to hoover, polish and dust everything, clean the bathroom and check every light switch and plug socket five times before we could leave the house. It was heartbreaking to watch. Toward the end of filming, Gascoigne said he wanted to reconnect with his ex-wife Cheryl, his son Regan and adopted daughter Bianca. It had been years since Paul had been in touch with Cheryl following their acrimonious split, after allegations of Paul's domestic violence, and the multiple court cases over their divorce. The family reunion was emotional, tinged with love, sadness and a sense of frustration and recrimination on all sides. Paul stayed at the house with the family for weeks before Cheryl asked him to leave. I had an impending sense of doom as I began editing the film. Then I got the call that Gascoigne had been found collapsed drunk in the street in London. I received another call from a hotel asking me to collect Gascoigne as he was drunk and naked in the foyer and upsetting the guests. It was yet another incident in Paul's 30-year slow-motion collapse. We kept in touch for a long time after the film came out in 2015. Sometimes Gascoigne would call when he was drunk, sometimes when he was sober. He gave me a watch with the engraving, 'Love from Gazza', and apologised for any problems he'd caused me. Gascoigne always said he didn't know how to live when his career ended, how he regretted not preparing for a life without football. He explained that when you've had fans giving you unconditional love, validation and adulation – and earning a lot of money in the process – the transition to normal life is overwhelming. His fame intensified his personal identity, not knowing who he was – whether it was 'Gazza' or Paul. And his problems with money forced him to make a living doing after-dinner talks where he recounts all the skeletons from his cupboard to a paying audience. It has been cited that problems with his business may be the reason for Gascoigne's recent health scare and admission to ICU. The personal company he set up to channel income from his appearances was struck off and dissolved at the beginning of July for failing to file accounts – and rumours of a falling out over a business deal are said to have plunged him into depression. Sadly, it all feels inevitable. The emotional and psychological toll of a life spent trying to be Paul when the world wanted Gazza, during an era that failed to recognise when someone needed help, is nothing short of a tragedy. Gascoigne never really stood a chance. Today, he is recovering at home in Poole, Dorset, inundated with well-wishes from his legion of fans. Like a million others, I always hoped that Gascoigne would find a happy ending. I hope it's not too late.


The Independent
26 minutes ago
- The Independent
How Michelle Agyemang and Chloe Kelly have exposed the big lie at the heart of football
At its best, sport delivers drama like nothing else. Unexpected twists, reversals of fortune, the upending of expectation: all of the playwright's principal weapons are on display on the cricket pitch, the rugby field or the athletics track. But the Lionesses seem to have embraced the dramatic with a gusto that few have matched before. Nothing comes easy for these English footballers. Everything is left to the last minute. For them, the straightforward is always to be spurned. And how we have embraced their approach. Eight million of us tuned in to ITV to watch them play Italy in the Euros semi-final last week. By the end, as Chloe Kelly once again delivered the coup de grace as she had three years ago when they won the tournament on home soil, the pundit Ian Wright was by no means alone in his vigorous celebratory cavort around the ITV studio: all eight million of us were leaping from our sofas as one, united in delighted relief. We all went doolally. But until that moment of nationwide release, how they toyed with our nerves, ratcheting up the tension at every turn. Up against a brave, resilient but far less talented Italian team, England's women first fell behind, then waited until the last possible moment to equalise through the substitute Michelle Agyemang, who had only been on the pitch for seven minutes. Even Kelly's winner was not exactly uncomplicated: having seen her penalty brilliantly saved by the Italy goalkeeper, she was obliged to snaffle the rebound. Her celebration, miming that we should all just calm down, there was no need to panic, she was in control, was a lovely summation of the Lionesses' way: they get there in the end. It is almost as if Serena Wiegman and her team need to embrace jeopardy before they can express themselves. For so much of this Euros tournament, they have been off kilter, playing well below their potential. They are the holders, after all. In the quarter-final against Sweden, like Italy, another side with little of England's resources and financial backing, they had to turn things around after an abject start. Again, they needed Kelly and Agyemang to deliver a late rescue act from the bench. Even their one convincing win against Holland earlier in the tournament was the product of necessity: having lost their first group game to France, they had to win in order to avoid the ignominy of being the first holders ever to be ejected from the competition before the knockout rounds. Like their male counterparts in last summer's Euros, they may have stuttered and staggered along the way, drawing vituperative criticism for their tactics and the manager's selections, but they have made it to the final. As they have done so, they have once again refuted many of the wearisome, misogynistic prejudices that have for so long stalked women's sport in this country. And still do in Italy, where news of their women's defeat in the semi-final is down at the bottom of the front page of La Gazzetta dello Sport 's website, well below updates on the Italian Fantasy Football League. Sure, they may not be as quick or strong as the blokes, but that comparison is a pointless irrelevance when the drama they embrace is as intense as this. Like every drama, this one is all the more compelling because of the characters involved. Take 19-year-old churchgoer Agyemang, who has only ever played four times for her club Arsenal, yet across just 103 minutes on the pitch for her country has now scored three times. That is the kind of record that makes Erling Haaland look goal-shy. Then there's Lucy Bronze, the titan of a defender who defied age and injury to smash home the decisive penalty in the shootout against Sweden. Or Hannah Hampton, the smiling goalkeeper who proved with her magnificent save in extra time against Italy that she deserves to have usurped her predecessor, the stalwart Mary Earps. Maybe, after seeing her in action last night, Nike might feel it worth their while to market a Hampton replica shirt in the way they initially refused to do with Earps's piece of kit. The demand will, without question, be there. Every little girl watching her throw herself into action will want to pull on a Hampton jersey. And many a little boy too. And pay is still much lower than men's. While the Football Association agreed a record bonus package with England's Lionesses worth up to £1.7m if they retain their European Championship title this summer, Gareth Southgate's squad would have shared a bonus pot of about £9.6m had they won the European Championship final against Spain last summer. In total, England's women receive roughly one-fifth to one-tenth of what the men earn – largely due to smaller prize pots, less commercial revenue, and historical underinvestment – lest we forget, women's football was banned in England from 1921 to 1971 on FA pitches. But while this historical legacy has stunted institutional backing and funding, with rising fan support, this is changing. Because the Lionesses have become part of the national story. They may be paid less, but we are all invested, we are all committed, and we are all behind them. What they have proven is that, against apparent assumption, the English are quite good at things. Though for the collective nerve, it might be as well that in the final, they could simply score early and cut out all the concern. Just do it the easy way. With these women, however, you suspect that won't happen. These are, after all, queens of drama and in their play against Spain expect nothing less.


The Independent
26 minutes ago
- The Independent
Is Arsenal v Newcastle on TV? Channel, start time and how to watch preseason friendly online
Arsenal take on Newcastle United in a Premier League clash in Singapore today. The Gunners beat AC Milan in their opening preseason friendly thanks to a second-half goal from Bukayo Saka. Newcastle, meanwhile, were hammered 4-0 by Celtic. Now the pair clash as they tune up ahead of the new campaign, which begins in three weeks' time on 15 August. Here is what you need to know about the match. Arsenal v Newcastle kicks off at 12.30pm BST (7.30pm local time) at Singapore's National Stadium. TV channel The match will be shown live on and can be streamed for £4.99. The game will also be shown on the where a match pass also costs £4.99. Team news Lewis Hall, who missed the latter part of last season, has travelled with the squad and could make an appearance. Mikel Arteta is expected to give some of his new signings – Kepa Arrizabalaga, Noni Madueke, Christian Norgaard, Martin Zubimendi – a run out too. Arsenal's preseason fixtures Arsenal 1-0 AC Milan Arsenal v Newcastle – Sunday 27 July Arsenal v Tottenham – Thursday 31 July Arsenal v Villarreal – Wednesday 6 August Arsenal v Athletic – Saturday 9 August Newcastle's preseason fixtures Newcastle 0-4 Celtic Newcastle v Arsenal – Sunday 27 July Newcastle v Team K League – Wednesday 30 July Newcastle v Tottenham – Sunday 3 August Newcastle v Espanyol – Friday 8 August