Wightman and O’hare seek to make capital gains in Berlin

Edinburgh Athletic Club’s Jake Wightman has praised the strength of Great Britain’s 1,500 metres team as he and fellow capital runner Chris O’hare approach today’s European Championships final.

Wightman and O’hare will be joined by GB team-mate Charlie Grice in the middledistance final after all three impressed in qualifying.

And tonight could see Scotland lead the charge for medals for Great Britain with Eilidh Doyle in the 400m hurdles final and Lynsey Sharp going for 800m gold.

Wightman and O’hare’s 1,500m final is the last event of the night in Berlin’s majestic Olympiastadion and promises to be a cracker with the three British athletes going up against Norwegian brothers Filip, Jakub and Henrik Ingebrigtsen.

“The strength of the team, and what we are all running at the moment, is as good as it has been in any previous year,” said Wightman. “So getting all of us through to the final was the first job and then hopefully we’ll come out with some strong runs.

“It wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be [qualifying]. After watching the heats previously, some big names went out and I didn’t want to be one of them so I had to work a bit harder. ”

Wightman’s qualifying time of 3:40.73 was the fastest in the field and some are labelling tonight’s final as Britain v Norway, or Britain v the Ingebrigtsen brothers. Filip Ingebrigtsen is the champion and has set the fastest time by any European in 2018, closely followed by younger brother Jakub.

Sharp is in action 30 minutes before that final and is the third fastest European over 80s0m in 2018, as she looks to re-take a title she won in Helsinki in 2012. Doyle hits the track at 7:50pm in the 400m hurdles final.

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