GREG SHARES GOLDIN JEDBURGH
The sprint star and his opponent couldn’t be separated
When four of Scotland’s fastest sprinters went headto-head over 100 metres it was always going to be a close-run thing.
In the end it boiled down to a two-way tussle for gold but even the judges couldn’t separate Stewartfield speedster Greg Kelly and Edinburgh’s Allan Hamilton when they hit the finishing tape at Jedburgh Border Games.
After a lengthy delay a dead-heat was announced with East Kilbride AC’s Kelly and Edinburgh AC’s Hamilton given the time of 10.88 seconds on the rain-soaked grass track.
Kelly, a Scotland representative at the Loughborough International in May, lined up alongside current Scottish 200m champion Hamilton, fellow Loughborough Internationalist Cameron Tindle and Scottish Schools champion Douglas Young.
The runners lifted well from the blocks but it was soon apparent that Kelly and Hamilton were showing the greater speed as they inched ahead of Tindle with Young dropping out of contention.
The pair continued to draw clear of their rivals and lunged for the line in unison, with the crowd on one side of the park favouring Kelly as the winner and those on the other side thinking Hamilton had won.
A nervous wait ensued before the tie was announced, with first and second prizemoney split down the middle.
Kelly opted to take the winner’s medal while Hamilton chose to receive the winner’s sash.
It has been a memorable year already for Kelly, who in January become the first double winner of the New Year Sprint since the 1930s.
A winner of the Scottish Universities 100m title in April, Greg went on to finish fourth in the British Universities 100m.
The Loughborough International was followed by a winning run at the Scotland v Ireland Universities match, a double second place debut for Glasgow AC in the British League and even a win over 100m at the Algarve Athletics Championships.