The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
MuirtakesUK800mtitle
LA URA MUIR (Dundee Hawkhill) booked her ticket on the plane for the World Indoor Championships in Poland after winning the UK 800m title at the British Indoor Championships at the EIS in Sheffield yesterday.
Having earlier eased through her heat in a winning two minutes 08.73 seconds, the Milnathort athlete settled down in third place in the final as Shelayna Oskan-Clarke (Windsor, Slough & Eton) took up the pace.
Tracked by fastest qualifier at 2:05.68, Jenny Meadows (Wigan). Muir held third as Meadows took up the running going through 400m in 66 seconds with Oskan-Clarke holding second place.
The bell for the final 200m saw Muir challenge for the lead before unleashing a determined effort over the final 100m, sprinting to victory in two minutes 06.04 seconds. Oskan-Clarke took the silver medal in 2:06.66 with Katy Kirk’s (Lagan Valley) 2:06.76 relegating a tiring Meadows to fourth in 2:06.80.
Muir said: “I’m really happy, it was good to already have the world qualifying time but I wanted to win to secure my place. I knew I had to stay in the top two or three and then use my speed over the final lap.
“I’ll now contest the 1500m at next week’s Birmingham Grand Prix then go on to the World Indoor Championships.”
Previously Jenny Tan ( Fife A C) contested the fourth 800m heat leading through 400m in 65 seconds but losing out over the final 80m as A delle Tracey (Guilford & Godalming) came through to take the automatic qualifying place in 2:07.86 withTan following at 2:08.59.
There was disappointment for defending 400m champion Eilidh Child (Pitreavie) as she ran out of the podium positions. Margaret A deoye (Enfield) made her bid over the final lap to come home in 52.77 seconds while LauraWake (Windsor, Slough & Eton) won the chase for second place. Child came home fourth in 53.68 seconds.
There high drama in the men’s 400m f inal where defending champion Nigel Levine (Windsor SE) was only awarded gold after the disqualification of Luke Lennon-Ford (Birchfield) for stepping out of his lane. Levine clocked 46.82 seconds while Scottish all-time ranked no 2 Jamie Bowie (Inverness) came fifth in 47.83 seconds.
Lee Emanuel (City of Sheffield) took the 1500m title after Chris O’Hare (Edinburgh A C), hero of the recent Sainsbury’s Glasgow International, had made the early running.
Emmanuel sprinted away to a 3:48.15 victory while a blanket finish for second place was won by O’Hare in 3:48.68, a mere one hundredth ahead of Charlie Grice (Brighton Phoenix).
Lasswade 800m athlete Guy Learmonth benefited from the disqualification of first over the line A ndrew Osagie (Harlow) who stepped off the track in the back straight. Mukhtar Mohamed (Sheffield) was awarded the gold medal timed at one minute 51.61 seconds with Learmonth clocking 1:51.87.
A uchterarder athlete Morag MacLarty (Central) came ninth in the women’s 1500m, while Jo Moultrie (VP Glasgow) took the silver medal.
Defending 60m champion James Dasaolu (Croydon) and Dwain Chambers (Belgrave) fought out the closest of sprint finals with the verdict going to Dasaolu in 6.50 seconds to Chambers 6.53. Pitreavie’s Ryan Oswald took silver in the 200m thanks to personal best 21.35.
In the field Jayne Nisbet (Edinburgh A C) took silver after clearing a Scottish indoor record of 1.87m in the high jump, while Montrose athlete Gregor MacLean (Shaftesbury Barnet) settled for fourth place in the men’s pole vault at 5.30m.