Manchester

6 May 2002

Chester Le Street, GBR

Dani has had an outstanding season winning a gold medal as part of the Great Britain Under 20 team in the European Cross Country Championships in Croatia before Christmas; winning the English Schools Cross Country title in the Lent; before ending her season at Easter by coming 27th in the World Junior Cross Country Championships. Her track season has got off to a flying start and she won the 1500m at the GB trials for the European Junior Championships, for which she hopes to be selected next month

Pre-race: Euro xc: Dani Barnes (Newquay and Par AC) helped win the Team Gold medals in Medulin 12 months ago to follow the Team Silver medals won in 2000 and 2001. “It’s a relief to have the chance to go for it. Competing in a major championship on home soil is a very special and rare opportunity that must be taken advantage of. I’m hoping for a Team Gold and individual top five finish.”

Dani was 9th in the Junior race at the European Cross-country in Edinburgh in a time of 16.23. 

Dani said: “I’m not that happy. I wanted to be in the top five again. I will have to think about it, but I ran as hard as I could. I couldn’t have done any better. So really I am pleased to know I ran as well as I can. The course was good. The support was great." 

Great Britain took the team Gold medal. Dani said: "I can really enjoy the Team medal again.”

Preview:1500m Silver medallist at last summer’s European Junior Championships who earned automatic selection for Brussels by finishing ninth to help Norwich Union GB retain the Junior Women’s Team title at the Spar European Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh in December, has been picking up tips from her training mate, Zoë Jelbert. “Zoe’s brilliant,” says Barnes, who was 27^th in the Junior Women’s race at last winter’s World Cross Country Championships in Lausanne. “She’s always passing on a bit of advice.”

“I’m not flying at the moment, but I am running well. Everything in training is going as planned, but the main aim for this year is the World Juniors in the summer. Brussels will tell me exactly how the bulk of my winter training is going. I think I’m about as fit as last year, but it will be nice to see exactly where we are.”

Britons feel the heat in Italy, Paul Halford

THE 10th IAAF World Junior Championships had drama, a home-based star and world records yet sadly, and significantly, no medals for the Norwich Union Great Britain and Northern Ireland team.

For the first time in an international track and field championships since 1972, British athletes failed to gain a single medal. Dani Barnes was Britain's top placed athlete in fourth and, though Britain equalled the number of finalists it achieved in the last championships in Kingston, it was not among the 39 countries on the medal table.

World Junior fourth placer over 1500m Dani Barnes (Newquay & Par) will miss out on the chance to compete in her last championships as a Junior due to an ankle injury.  Barnes, who won Junior Team Gold medals at the European Cross in 2002 and 2003, praised “the awesome medical team” at the High Performance Centre in Loughborough where she is now based and has taken their advice not to resume full training for another few weeks.

Pre-race: Senior Men and Senior Women 4km (incorporating Welsh Champs)

Charlotte  Moore faces quality such as Ellie Baker (South London Harriers), who was second in this Women’s race 12 months ago and was among the Norwich GB Senior Women’s squad that won Team Silver medals in Tilburg last month; Dani Barnes (Newquay and Par), who is as proficient over the country as on the track; and Sonia Thomas (Sale Harriers Manchester), a former GB Junior international who is a perpetual danger.