George Mills celebrates winning the 3000m at the British Indoor Athletics Championships (Image: British Athletics via Getty)
George Mills won the men’s 3,000m at the British Indoor Athletics Championships on Sunday. The 25-year-old set a new championship record with his time of seven minutes 40.16 seconds.
Despite breaking the previous record by around 10 seconds, it was still a narrow victory for Mills. He crossed the line just 0.17 seconds ahead of two-time British Indoor 3000m champion James West.
From a sporting family, Mills was watched closely by his dad, Danny Mills, in Birmingham. The win earned him a place at the European Indoor Championships, and the athlete took the record-breaking performance in his stride.
“I came here to do a job – that was to first of all qualify for the European Indoor Championships and put my name in the hat again for worlds and obviously, to win,” Mills told . “Delighted to do that.
“When I go to races now in these championships, I’m going to win medals, so that’s what I’m aiming to do. I really give everything to this sport and I just want to be the best athlete I can.”
Mills has pedigree across the continent, winning silver in the men’s 5000m at last year’s European Championships in Rome. At the Paris Olympics, Mills was knocked out in the 1500m semi-finals and was at the centre of a controversial incident as he qualified for the 5000m final.
Danny Mills played for England at the 2002 World Cup (Image: Getty)
He was involved in a collision that caused three others to fall, with Mills blaming French runner Hugo Hay for instigating the contact, leading to a heated argument on the track. Mills and the other fallen runners were reinstated, and the British athlete finished 21st in the final. However, the fiery exchange led to comparisons with his dad’s temper on the football pitch.
“I’d have reacted far worse. I would have had an automatic disqualification and probably been arrested,” Mills Snr told last summer. “A bit of finger-waving is really what it came to. I thought he handled himself well in the interviews afterwards. It was an emotional reaction immediately after, so I would implore everybody to think that, if your dreams for eight years were suddenly taken away from you because somebody pushed you over, how would you feel?”
The former England full-back, who played for high-flying Leeds United and won the League Cup with Middlesbrough, played every minute for the Three Lions as they reached the 2002 World Cup quarter-finals, stepping in for an injured . His eldest son may be a record-breaking runner, but there is another footballer in the family. Stanley Mills, 21, came through at Everton before joining Oxford United in the recent January transfer window.