Muir urging ‘crazy’ Glasgow crowd to get behind world record bid

Scot believes she is more than capable of new 1,000m world best

Laura Muir will attempt to break the 1,000m world record as the World Indoor Tour resumes with the Muller Grand Prix at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow tomorrow.

The Milnathort athlete already holds Scottish, British and European records but she has yet to set a world record.

Muir has set her sights on Maria Mutola’s current mark of two minutes 30.94 seconds set in 1999.

The Dundee Hawkhill athlete’s personal best for 1,000m stands at 2:31.93 when the Muller Grand Prix was held at Birmingham in February 2017.

Muir has come a long way since then, winning 1,500m and 3,000m gold at the European Indoor Championships held at the Emirates Arena in March last year.

Muir said: “I feel that going quicker than two minutes 30.94 seconds is a real possibility, and I can’t think of a better place to go for the record than here in Glasgow and at such a world-class event.

“I know all about the Glasgow crowd from the European Indoors last year and I know they will be crazy as ever, so the opportunity to achieve something as historic as a world record with them cheering me all the way is really special.”

Training partner Jemma Reekie, lining up in the 1,500m, will also be in the spotlight having broken Muir’s indoor UK records at the Millrose Games in New York last weekend.

In the one-mile race the Kilbarchan athlete posted 1,500m and mile marks of 4:00.52 and 4:17.88 respectively.

Only a week earlier Reekie headed Muir at the Emirates Arena over 800m, setting a UK Indoor record of 1:57.91.

“I was in complete shock with the time,” Reekie said. “It was so nice to cross the line and for Laura to be so excited with me. She knows how much I’ve improved in training and how much we’ve worked together and she was so excited that I’ve finally shown it to other people as well.

“Laura has taught me everything I know. I came to her at such a young age and she took me straight under her wing. On and off the track I could not ask for a better training partner and friend. She has helped me through a lot and I have helped her through a lot.”

The Emirates meeting is set to start on a high note as Armand Duplantis of Sweden stars in the pole vault opening event having broken the world record at last weekend’s World Indoor Tour in Toru, Poland.

After coming agonisingly close to achieving the feat in Dusseldorf a few days earlier, the 20-year-old world silver medallist gained the record 6.17m he had been craving by adding one centimetre to the mark set by France’s Renaud Lavillenie in Donetsk, Ukraine, in 2014.

“It’s something that I wanted since I was three years old,” said Duplantis.

World heptathlete champion Katerina Johnson-Thompson contests the long jump taking on UK colleagues Jazmin Sawyers and Lorraine Ugen.

Picture: PA. Laura Muir is excited to take her tilt at the world record in front of a raucous Glasgow crowd tomorrow.