MUIR’S AS GOOD AS GOLD
Scot celebrates first major outdoors title by cruising to 1500m glory
IT WAS as an accomplished performance on the track that you could have wished to see. In winning her first major outdoor gold medal at the European Championships, Laura Muir looked like she had been doing it for years.
It’s been established for some time that the Scot is a fine talent but until last night, the tangible rewards of her efforts had only come indoors.
Here, in the 1500metre final, that changed with a convincing win and a small slice of history as Muir became Britain’s first female European champion at the distance, moments before fellow Scot Eilish McColgan took silver in the women’s 5,000m.
In the case of Muir, it was good accolade and a job well done, but hardly a shock.
Indeed, the 25-year-old was never expected to struggle against this field and the reality played out true to the predictions, with the Scot crossing in 4:02.32, comfortably ahead of Sofia Ennaoui, a Pole who surged past Muir’s team-mate, Laura Weightman, on the straight but never had a prayer of catching the woman in front.
Weightman held on to add a bronze to the one she won in Zurich in 2014, which is an achievement in its own right, but to appreciate the gap to Muir, it is necessary to note that Weightman’s personal best — the second fastest in the field at 4:00.17 — was around five seconds down on what Muir has done at her fastest.
In Berlin, Muir didn’t need to go near that 3:55 mark to win, which must be some relief considering the 1500m and 5,000m fields she faces on the world stage are as strong and deep as almost any in athletics.
Her two world indoor medals were extremely hard won, so against that backdrop, this felt like a straightforward opportunity the moment Sifan Hassan decided ahead of the championships to focus solely on the 5,000m.
It cleared the way and Muir didn’t look back, despite what she admitted was quite significant pressure as such a heavy favourite.
‘This was probably the most pressure I have been under, it was something new for me, but I think I handled it really well,’ she said. ‘I’m just thankful for all the support I have had back home and here as well.’
On the race, in which she took the lead at around 700m and never gave it up, she said: ‘I knew a lot of the girls have a good finish, so I thought the longer I leave it, the riskier it would be. I know I can run hard from a long way out, so I did that.’
Meanwhile, McColgan (below), the daughter of the 1991 world 10,000m champion Liz McColgan, claimed the best result of her career, surpassing the European indoor bronze she won last year.
She was helped by the Israeli Lonah Chemtai Salpeter stopping at the end of the penultimate lap in the belief she had finished. That allowed McColgan to jump from third to second behind runaway leader Hassan, with Salpeter finishing fourth — and left utterly distraught after her blunder.
The Dundonian, 27, has been battling a virus over the past few weeks but her gamble to surge to the front paid off, thanks in part to her mother. ‘My mum said to me: “You know you’re in personal-best shape, you know you are, run the way that’s best for you”. It was a bit scary to be running 4k on your own. I thought: “Oh my god, they’re going to come past at some point”. But mum had said: “When they come past, don’t be scared, just latch on, it’s not going to be that fast but you’re already at a fast pace”.’
Meanwhile, Zoey Clark revealed she scored her third major medal by leading the Brits to bronze in the 4x400m relay after she almost came undone when her shoe laces snapped pre-race.
But the Aberdonian couldn’t stop GB losing their title to Poland, with France getting silver.
‘We are always expected to come away with a medal,’ she said. ‘Coming in as defending champs meant there was a bit of pressure on us but there are so many good teams in Europe and it was such