The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Reekie self-belief has rocketed, insists Muir
Milnathort runner backs fellow Scot to shine in build-up to Tokyo
No one should doubt that Jemma Reekie is now a match for anyone in the world, her training partner and mentor Laura Muir has insisted.
The 22-year-old picked up where she left off while brilliantly setting a string of UK indoor records in the spring by running the second quickest outdoor 800 metres of 2020 in Trieste, Italy, on Saturday.
The time of 1:59.52, which knocked almost two seconds off her previous best, was enough to give Reekie victory as she gamely fought off a late charge from Dundee Hawkhill Harrier Muir to prevail by a mere two-hundreds of a second.
And the European 1,500m champion senses the Scottish starlet is ready to leap to another level in the year leading up to the Tokyo Olympics.
Muir said: “She definitely seems to have even more self-belief now after what she did during the indoor season. But I’ve never really taken Jemma for granted, even before recently. Because she has some kick on her.”
It kicked into top gear when she bolted to the front on the final lap with supreme confidence and then held on doggedly to see off a field which also contained the current European champion at the distance, Renelle Lamote.
After almost six months in lockdown, it was an almost perfect return, declared Reekie, who will face a rematch with Muir at next week’s opening Diamond League meeting in Monaco.
She said: “It was a nice rust-buster. It’s been too long. I’m happy to get a sub-2 outdoors for the first time. I’m always wanting more.”
Jake Wightman also jetted out to the Triveneto meeting but departed before it had even begun due to a bizarre mix-up by Italian organisers that left him seething.
The European medallist, 26, had planned to kick off his season in the men’s 800m. But his race was axed from the schedule without prior notice and he rejected an offer to run the 400m instead.
“I found out while I was on a two-hour bus from Venice to Trieste,” he said. “I stayed the night and then went home.”
Elsewhere, Josh Kerr kept up his unbeaten start to the summer by recording the fastest 1,500 metres of the year so far at the Big Friendly meeting in Portland.
The 22-year-old, in his first outing at the distance since coming sixth in last October’s World Championship final, ran 3:34.53 to finish more than a second clear of Canada’s Will Paulson.