Muir hoping to sign off her fine summer in style

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 Dundee Hawkhill Harrier 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 1,500m 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 1,500m 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 in Tokyo 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.

Yet nothing in the diary is certain.

Few people expect March’s world indoor championships in China, originally postponed from last spring, to proceed as scheduled.

While the fate of the Olympics is set to make for an uncertain climate for all concerned, Muir admits: “I don’t know if it preys on the mind but it is something I’ve thought about 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 be.”