Focused Gourley seals spot for Doha with narrow win
THE gunslingers gathered in the Wild West of Birmingham yesterday with weapons locked and loaded. The men’s 1,500 metres final at the UK Athletics Championships in Birmingham was destined to resemble an oldfashioned saloon shootout at the OK Corral with bullets fired indiscriminately until one survivor emerged through the smoke with pride, and life, retained.
So it proved. And when the mist cleared, it was Neil Gourley who was declared as the new sheriff, laying down the law to his rivals with an explosive charge down the home straight of the Alexander Stadium that underpinned his authority.
The reward for the 24-year-old Glaswegian was the security of a place at the forthcoming IAAF world championships in Doha. A special supremacy too. Adjoining him on the podium were vanquished foes Josh Kerr and Jake Wightman, the third successive year in which this event has delivered a Scottish 1-2-3.
It required, Gourley conceded, a few chips to fall his way. “Josh moved out a little bit and it was a case of driving and driving and trying not to strain - and thinking about all the people who were willing me on and who’d believed in me all season,” he said.
“It had looked like there was a slim chance I’d make this team but they kept me believing. My coach isn’t one to believe in luck. He believes you make your own. But of course, there is an element of fortune in a race like that where there are a huge number of variables. I just had to focus on holding my spot up the home straight and getting over the line.”
His time of 3:48.36 was a mere 15-hundredths of a second ahead of Kerr, with whom he has regularly battled in recent years on the American circuit on which they ply their trade. Having come third 12 months ago, he was duly omitted from the British team for the European Championship in Berlin.
Hence, Gourley felt relief too. “I thought I had a shot of going to the Europeans and was emphatically told no. I knew because of that, and the standard of people running this year, that third wasn’t going to be good enough to go.”
Likewise, Kerr guaranteed his trip to the desert and a platform for the 21-year-old to showcase his burgeoning talents. “I just had to get on the plane,” he affirmed. “When Neil came past me, I just thought ‘I’ve got to stay focused here and push as much as possible.’”
However, Wightman’s third place will force the selectors to choose between the European medallist and top-ranked Charlie Da’Vall Grice. Reigning champion Chris O’Hare, who managed only sixth, will return to the USA and plot a reboot ahead of next year’s Olympics.
Eilish McColgan provided the most dominant victory of the two days of these domestic trials in the women’s 5,000m final, winning by almost 100m in a time of 15:21.38.
“It’s the first year I’ve come to trials in shape with no issues whatsoever,” the Dundonian asserted. “So I thought ‘why not make the other girls hurt?’”
Jemma Reekie will join her in Doha after she came second to Sarah McDonald in the women’s 1500m with Lynsey Sharp’s 800m silver behind Shelayna Oskan-Clark cementing her call-up.
Beth Dobbin snapped up a women’s 200m spot as runner-up to Jodie Williams while Adam Gemili set a championship record of 20.08 secs in the men’s 200m final to emerge as the victor in the Battle of the Brits ahead of Zharnel Hughes.
A few others have a little extra work to do although Zoey Clark’s third place in the 400m final all but guarantees the Aberdonian a relay run in Doha. Guy Learmonth’s job is exactly half-complete. He just missed the 800m title in a photo finish with unheralded Spencer Thomas, with both timed at 1:46.79. Now the Borderer must run the qualifying standard of 1:45.80 by next Saturday.
I thought I had a shot of going to the Europeans and was emphatically told no. I knew because of that that third wasn’t going to be good enough to go