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Jonny Mellor declines invite to England Commonwealth Games team

by FR Newsdesk January 5, 2018

Jonny Mellor declines invite, with Alicia Barrett and Jessica Turner added to the England team for the Commonwealth Games.

Barrett and Turner who represented Great Britain at the World Championships in London last summer in the 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles respectively, replace James Dasaolu and Ashleigh Nelson who have chosen to withdraw from the squad.

Previous replacements to be called up include 800m runner Alex Bell and the next athlete on the reserve list was Jonny Mellor. However, the marathoner, who was omitted from the initial England Commonwealth team has decided to decline the invite and will instead focus on the London Marathon in April.

“Following my initial non-selection I went away and sat down with my coach Steve Vernon and after careful consideration, we both decided that we couldn’t wait around for possible selection for the Commonwealth Games, which might never come and made the decision to commit to the Virgin London Marathon instead,” Mellor told Fast Running.

“Training for a Championship marathon and the London Marathon are both very different and taking into account other factors such as travel, heat training and the date of the race we felt that running the London Marathon gives me a much better shot at running a fast time at this stage in my development as a marathon runner.

“I am extremely grateful to the support shown to me by the organisers at London and look forward to racing in April and at the Big Half in March. ”

Mellor’s omission from the initial England Commonwealth Games team was a huge disappointment after a year that saw him ranked as the fastest English marathon runner. England chose not to select any men for the marathon despite Mellor’s 2:12:57 at the Berlin Marathon in September.

The Commonwealth Games take place in Australia from April 4th to April 15th. To date, all home nations except Wales have announced their teams. The initial England squad can be found here, Scotland here and the Northern Ireland athletics squad here.