Pole vaulter Luke Cutts hopes he has recovered from a bloody accident at work in time to win a fifth successive British Indoor Championships gold in Birmingham this weekend.
The Thurnscoe man had to have six stitches in his hand after a piece of aluminium came loose while he was slicing into it in his job as a van-fitter. Cutts said: "I have missed two and a half weeks of training which is not ideal just before the British Championships. It's healing up and I am back in training now but there is still a little bit of pain. Hopefully it won't have much of an impact on me at the weekend."
Cutts, who turned 30 this week, has won the British indoors every year since 2014 while also taking the last two outdoor titles. He is the national record holder and competed in the 2016 Rio Olympics. Cutts said: "It would be a fantastic achievement to win it five times in a row, and I don't think anyone has ever done that before. I just want to keep the run going and I want to compete well into my 30s so hopefully I can get my number of golds into double figures.
"I can't be complacent, anything can happen on the day and there are some good youngsters coming up on the scene like Adam (Hague, his Dearne ALC team-mate). I can't keep winning it forever and someone will beat me at some point, but I won't give it up without a fight. At the moment I am working all day then training most evenings then getting up at 5am to work again. It's tough but that's what needs to be done."
The British indoors are also the qualifying event for the World Indoor Championships which is also in Birmingham from March 1-4.Cutts' attention will then turn to the outdoor season which begins with a trip to Gold Coast in Australia for the Commonwealth Games in April for which he has been selected. Cutts has competed in the two previous Commonwealth Games, claiming silver in Glasgow in 2014 after losing a jump-off to England team-mate Steve Lewis. Rotherham man Hague – who Cutts has helped to coach – has also been selected in the England team for this year's event.
"I am really looking forward to it. I am expected to get a medal, but I am not sure what colour yet. It would be nice to go one better than last time and win the title but we will have to see what happens. It's good that Adam will be going as well. It's nice to know someone else well in the team because it's a long flight and I will be a long way from home for a couple of weeks."
Meanwhile, Joe Ferguson will compete in the biggest race of his life at the British Indoor Championships on Sunday and hopes it leads to a career at the highest level of sprinting. The 17-year-old from Darton, who has recently recovered from flu, is due to travel down to Birmingham today and compete in the 200m from 12pm on Sunday.
He is likely to line up against some of the best sprinters in the country, including former Olympians and members of the 4x100m relay gold medal team from last year's World Championships in London. Joe said: "All the professionals will be there so I should be racing against some really big names. It will be the highlight of my career so far. Even just having a race number with my name on will be a big thing.
"I want to beat my personal best and I am in good shape to do that.Hopefully the faster runners can pull me along. I would love to get through my heat and get to the semi-finals which would put me further up the rankings."
The following week, Joe is set to compete in the British Junior Championships where he is aiming for a place in the final. He is hoping to reduce his personal bests this season from 10.88 seconds to 10.6 in the 100m and from 21.9 to 21.5 in the 200m, with the aim of reaching the European Junior Championships next year and then pushing on to even more high-profile events.
He said: "I would love to get to the World Championships or the Olympics. You have got to aim high. Every season I have improved a lot and, as long as I keep doing that, I will be confident of getting to the top. I have a lot of years ahead of me so I am just going to work as hard as I can and see where I end up. I would like to make my international debut as soon as I can because that would put me in faster races and hopefully get my times better."
Joe – who trains five times a week while studying for his A levels this summer – has won the Yorkshire and North of England titles as a junior and also reached the finals of both the English Schools Championships and the UK School Games. He only took up sprinting four years ago at the age of 13. He said: "I have always been quite quick but I used to be small and underdeveloped. I played junior football for three years but I quit that at under 14s and a friend suggested I go down to Barnsley Athletics Club.
"My improvement has been rapid and I am beating people who used to beat me easily a few years ago. I have moved to Leeds City AC now so that I can compete at a higher level in competitions."
Joe is currently studying at Pontefract New College with the aim of doing a degree in sport and exercise at university from later this year.
