Ohuruogu named GB Athlete of Year

Ohuruogu had only just returned from a one-year ban

World 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu has been named Great Britain's Athlete of the Year for 2007.
The 23-year-old, who pipped team-mate Nicola Sanders to the gold medal in Osaka, also received a trophy for the best performance in 2007 in a GB vest.

Ohuruogu's winning time of 49.61 seconds in the 400m final was the third fastest time ever by a British woman behind Kathy Cook and Katherine Merry.

Marlon Devonish, 31, picked up the Male Athlete of the Year Award.

The sprinter was only sixth in the 100m final in Japan, but won a 4x100m relay bronze at the championships.

Ohuruogu also won a relay bronze, in the 4x400m race to add to her individual title, just 24 days after coming back from a one-year ban for missing three out-of-competition drug tests.

The male junior award went to Stoke's 19-year-old world junior 200m bronze medalist Alex Nelson, who was second to Devonish at this summer's world trials.

London's 16-year-old Asha Philip, who became the first British woman to achieve a global 100m title when she won the world youth championships this summer, took the female junior award.

The awards were handed out by the British Athletics Writers' Association at their 45th annual awards dinner.



South African rugby fans cheer as the country's victorious Rugby World Cup squad parades through the streets of the capital Pretoria on Friday. The Springboks defeated England 15-6 in the 2007 cup final in Paris last weekend. Photo: By Lenda of tznews