Muir ready to be tested in tough summer finale
LAURA MUIR wants to be pushed to the limit in her track finale at tonight’s Golden Gala in Rome to sign off a satisfying summer in style.
The 27- year- old will get the tough test she craves at the penultimate Diamond League meeting with an 800 metres field that includes training partner Jemma Reekie and new rankings leader Hedda Hynne.
After recording a fifth successive win with the quickest 1500m time in the world in Berlin last weekend, Muir concedes number six may need something spectacular after Hynne’s 1: 58.10 mark in Bellinzona on Tuesday that saw Reekie come fourth despite finishing less than a second behind.
“Hopefully there will be a lot of fast times,” said Muir. “Quite a few of the girls in that race are here. It would be great if we set another world lead. Hynne Hedda set a world lead and a Norwegian record. Jemma is running extremely well too. It’s going to be very competitive.”
Ideally, the European 1500m champion can lower the personal best of 1: 58.42 she collected in Monaco last year to round off a curtailed campaign that has demonstrated her readiness to challenge for Olympic medals next summer.
The Games, officials in Japan insist, will go ahead despite the prospect of a continued coronavirus pandemic. Although it is understood draft plans have been drawn up to keep British competitors in a secure off- site bubble until the last possible moment and then remove them speedily from the village once their competitions are done.
The fate of the Olympics is set to make for an uncertain climate, Muir admits.
“I don’t know if it preys on the mind but it is something I’ve thought about,” she said. “Because potentially it could happen. Everything is so unpredictable so I have considered it. Calling it off may well be an option. Hopefully it won’t.”
Reekie now looks medalready if the Games are staged, although her education process continues. In Bellinzona, she was denied when her rivals piggybacked on her bid for another personal best. Nevertheless, her mark of 1: 58.87 was still, impressively, a sixth sub- two minute effort of 2020 from the 22- year- old.
The experiences acquired from Muir and the rest of Andy Young’s Glasgow- based training group have been invaluable in her emergence as a global force.
“I’m really thankful,” said Reekie. “I was 17 when I joined the group and that was the perfect time to come in. I’ve grown up through that and learnt so much.”