WORLD CLASS
ATHLETICS LATEST Gunnell’s backing Doyle for London success
EILIDH DOYLE can still be a world beater this summer insists Olympic gold medal star Sally Gunnell.
With 50 days to go until the start of the IAAF World Championships in London the 30-year-old Scot is already playing catch-up after coming dead last in her opening Diamond League outing in Rome seven days ago.
But Doyle’s proud track record – including a European title – means she can never be written off claims Gunnell, who blitzed to 400 metres hurdles glory in Barcelona 25 years ago.
Gunnell said: “That training never goes away. When you’re mature you can tap into that and you don’t become a bad athlete overnight.
“And the thing about the 400m hurdles is it’s so technical. If you make a couple of adjustments to your strides or you run a little bit faster, everything can change in a couple of weeks.
“Eilidh has so much experience so she needs to stay positive because everything can turn around very quickly.
“When things go wrong it’s difficult and we saw that in Rome. But the worlds are 50 days away – and that’s plenty of time to get ready.”
Gunnell’s UK record of 52.74 seconds – set when she took the world title in Stuttgart in 1993 – still sits untouched.
But fresh proposals to clean up the sport mean it could be erased with plans to rewrite the history books in an attempt to erase a raft of dodgy marks set by suspected dopers. But Gunnell said: “If I hadn’t won in Barcelona, if I hadn’t broken the world record, I might feel differently.
“But I was very lucky in that I got it right in that moment and I achieved what I wanted, whereas I feel sorry for people like Jenny Meadows who have lost out.
“But then you get round to the idea of rewriting world records. Yes, you could probably take out most of the 80s because there’s enough proof about the Germans and Russians.
“But in the 90s you did have a lot of people running clean – the likes of Jonathan Edwards – and it’s just not fair.
“I feel strongly about that and I think it’s wrong to change those records.”