The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Stirling effort as Olympic runner seals win Lemoncello shows marathon class
Olympic steeplechaser Andrew Lemoncello (Fife AC) defeated a field of 7,000 runners to comfortably win the inaugural Stirling marathon.
The Arizona-based Scot cruised round the course in 2hr 25min 1sec to take the top prize, while Metro Aberdeen’s Sam Milton finished eighth in 2:43:30.
Milton’s Metro clubmates Ben Ward, 19th in 2:50:24 and Chris Richardson, 27th in 2:52:04, were also well placed.
Glasgow’s Lesley Pirie won the top women’s prize in 2:47:36, with Aberdeenborn Jill Smylie (Giffnock North) finishing second in 2:57:06 and Poole’s Juliet Champion taking third in 2:58:35.
Garioch’s Tammy Wilson set a personal best 3:00:09 to finish fourth, while former London marathon champion Liz McColgan, who still holds the Scottish women’s record of 2:26:52, finished 18th in 3:18:33. Another former Olympian, South African Zola Budd, was ninth in 3:12:24.
Scotland’s Beth Potter secured a world championship berth by scoring an impressive victory in the British 10,000 metres track championships at the Highgate Harriers meeting in London.
The VP Glasgow club member who competed in last year’s Rio Olympics, won the women’s race in 32min 4.63sec, 11sec inside the qualifying standard, while fellow Scot Steph Twell (Aldershot Farnham and District), in her first outing over this distance, was narrowly outside the requirement when finishing second in 32:16.23.
Both women were also well within the Scotland 2018 Commonwealth Games qualifying mark of 32:45. Inverness athlete Mhairi Maclennan was 22nd in 35:25.17.
Potter, who is also training for the triathlon, was pleased with her achievement, saying: “I wasn’t surprised. I’m running well but I hadn’t raced on the track since Rio so I didn’t really know. I’m just going to carry on with what I’m doing as it’s working. I came here with no pressure and it was good to have a tussle with Steph. I was smiling and grinning, looking at my coach and thinking, this is good.”
Aberdeen AAC’s Will Mackay was 21st in the men’s B race in 30:59.08 while his clubmate James Hoad finished 24th in 31:18.81.
Former Aberdeen stalwart Chris Smith set a personal best 30:47.21 in 15th position.