Magnificent Muir
Scottish track sensation speeds to GB record
Somebody buy Laura Muir a bulletproof safe and do not let anyone have access – her shoes need protecting.
Three times this year Muir has worn her fluorescent yellow track spikes and on each occasion she has added another record to her collection.
First it was the British indoor 5,000 metres just four days into the new year, then it was the European Indoor 3,000m at the start of this month, and yesterday Muir completed her hat-trick by breaking the European indoor 1,000m mark at the Barclaycard Arena.
As omens go, 2017 is looking increasingly likely to become the year that Muir is thrust into the limelight, despite her continued insistence that her veterinary studies will always take priority over her running career.
Yesterday’s performance at the Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix was another one of considerable guts and determination.
Paced by Jenny Meadows, who only retired from top-level athletics last year, Muir, 23, was forced to avoid flailing elbows at the gun as she wrestled herself into position behind her former British team-mate.
While victory was always going to prove plain sailing from that point onwards, all eyes were trained on the clock to see how fast she could go.
Her first target was the British record held by Kelly Holmes, the double Olympic champion whose 1,500m best was twice broken by Muir last season.
Then came Russian Yuliya Fomenko’s European record, and finally the outright world record that Maria Mutola, of Mozambique, set in 1999.
Muir’s time of 2min 31.93sec meant the first two of those were consigned to history, with only Mutola’s mark remaining intact.
Just one race into her indoor 1,000m career, the Scot can now call herself the second fastest woman of all time over the distance.
“I am delighted,” she said. “I really wanted to get the win, that was really important. To beat Kelly’s record is amazing and to be so close to the world record is also very encouraging for me. World records are always going to be tough – I was about a second off. But at a distance event, I’ll take that.
“It is every athlete’s dream to be running well every time you come out on the track and be injury free. Hopefully I can carry this sort of form into the summer.”
The strength of Muir’s early-season appearances had already been shown before she even stepped on the Birmingham track.
Muir’s absence from the 3,000m earlier in the day meant the race came down to a straight head-to-head between Kenya’s Hellen Obiri and Sifan Hassan, of Holland, both of whom set national records on their way to a onetwo. That neither time was within three seconds of Muir’s European record set earlier this month spoke volumes of her superiority ahead of a tilt at a 1,500m and 3,000m double in a fortnight’s time at the European Indoor Championships in Belgrade.
While the records are piling up, Muir is hoping to use those championships to break her medal duck, having failed to make the podium at Olympic, world, European and Commonwealth level.
Insisting she is targeting two medals “as close to gold as possible”, she will hope her racing spikes can maintain their hot streak. “The first race I wore them was [finishing seventh] at the Olympics so that didn’t go so great,” she said. “But it got a lot better – in Paris [for the British 1,500m record], then my 5,000m record, my 3,000m record and now my 1,000m record.
“They are doing pretty well so I’m going to keep them safe for the future. They will be worth a bit now.”
Continuing the form that had already earned him the two leading times in the world this year, Andrew Pozzi destroyed the 60m hurdles field as he went even faster in Birmingham, low- ering the personal best he posted earlier this month to triumph in 7.43 sec.
Blighted by a litany of foot injuries that have required six operations over the past few years, Pozzi has been restricted to fleeting appearances amid the seemingly endless cycle of surgery and recovery.
Finally fit and able to hurdle in training for the first time in years, Pozzi cemented his status as gold medal favourite for the European Indoor Championships.
“It all went to plan,” said Pozzi. “I know there is a really quick time in there and I am hoping to get it out at the Euros in two weeks’ time. I’m in really great shape and to keep running personal bests and faster, even if it is only slight, makes me feel positive.
“I need to go to the Euros, get through the rounds and be in the final challenging for gold. It has been a long time coming and I have worked hard to be here so I am enjoying it all the more.”
Muir and Pozzi are far from the only British athletes likely to challenge for medals in Serbia next month, with national long jump champion Lorraine Ugen impressing in pipping team-mate Jazmin Sawyers to victory in Birmingham.
Attempting to add to the world indoor bronze medal she claimed last winter, Ugen leapt 6.76m to equal the third longest jump in the world this year, with Sawyers just five centimetres further back.
Just six weeks after undergoing surgery on a burst appendix, Robbie Grabarz showed he is another candidate to make the European indoor podium, confirming his place in the British team with a best of 2.28m to finish second in a high jump competition won by America’s Erik Kynard.
Reigning European indoor 60m champion Richard Kilty is almost certain to be given the chance to defend his title after finishing third in Birmingham behind American winner Ronnie Baker, but it was the performance of Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson in the women’s 60m that stole the show in the sprint events.
A double Olympic champion over 100m and 200m in Rio last summer, Thompson was a class apart in the short sprint in Birmingham, blitzing the field to record the fastest time in the world since 2014 to triumph in 6.98 sec.
With British record holder Dina Asher-Smith forced to pull out with a fractured ankle on the eve of the event, Asha Philip was the only British representative to make it through to the final where she finished fifth.