BoXX United Manchester World Athletics Continental Tour Silver meeting on June 3 will give Brits a taste of international competition in north-west England

Three weeks before Sport City stages the Müller UK Athletics Championships, the Manchester venue will host a Continental Tour Silver meeting on Friday (June 3).

The event, which is organised by Vicente Modahl, sees some of Britain's leading athletes up against international visitors in a similar but even grander style to the Manchester World Indoor Silver meeting that was held in January.

Both the indoor and outdoor events at Sport City are sponsored by BoXX United and the goal is to grow this month's meeting so that it enjoys an upgrade to Continental Tour Gold status.

George Manangoi, a Kenyan with a 1500m best of 3:31.49 and who beat Jakob Ingebrigtsen to gold at the world under-20 title four years ago, leads the entries for the metric mile.

Up against him is an international field that includes talented youngsters Kamar Etyang of Kenya and Wegene Addisu of Ethiopia and a number of up-and-coming Brits such as Henry McLuckie, Thomas Keen and Ethan Hussey, whereas British 10,000m champion Sam Atkin is also on the entry list.

Edward Zakayo is another Kenyan with a world under-20 crown from 2018 on his resume. He took the 5000m title in Tampere four years ago and in Manchester heads the line-up for the men's 5000m in a field that includes Norway's Henrik Ingebrigtsen and Brits Jack Rowe, Hugo Milner, Ossian Perrin and Tom Mortimer.

The women's 5000m has a similar landscape with Ugandan record-holder Sarah Chelangat hopefully stretching British challengers like Verity Ockenden and Jenny Nesbitt.

A quality women's steeplechase will see Aimee Pratt, the recent UK record-breaker over 2000m 'chase, up against Luiza Gega of Albania.

Ben Pattison has shown great form so far this summer – with a clear win in the 800m B race at the Diamond League in Birmingham – and here he takes on Erik Sowinski, the 2016 world indoor bronze medallist from the United States, plus Charlie Da'Vall Grice and Finlay Mclear.

In the sprints, local favourite Andy Robertson faces American 10.01 runner Devin Quinn among others, while the women's 100m field sees sub-11-second runner Kayla White of the United States against Brits Bianca Williams and Rachel Miller.

The pole vault includes Brits Charlie Myers and Adam Hague against an international line-up that includes Dutchman Rutger Koppelaar, while the men's discus includes Brits Greg Thompson and Nick Percy.

Brooke Bushchkuehl, the Australian long jump record-holder with 7.05m and Olympic finalist in 2016 and 2021, takes on Britain's Abigail Irozuru among others.

“Our goal was to establish an international high calibre track meet in Manchester,” Modahl told AW. “As we know we have excellent facilities with a 6500-seater stadium that we wanted to utilise in a way that we could deliver an event annually for the city.

“It’s also at the premises of the 2002 Commonwealth Games, which we fought so hard with the city to get. We finally wanted an athletics legacy on the track.”

To buy tickets, go here.

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