Raising the bar
High jumper Allan Smith is looking to reach record heights, writes Susan Swarbrick
to the end of competing at U23 and looking towards senior level. I need to push for major championships.”
Having rubbed shoulders with Grabarz and Russian high jump powerhouse Aleksey Dmitrik in Glasgow last weekend, Smith has got a taste for competing at elite international level. He is already looking towards the 2014 Commonwealth Games and beyond to the Olympics in Rio two years later.
“The Commonwealth Games is still 18 months away, but the qualif– ication opens up in April. I want to be in the Scotland team for 2014.
“In the next couple of years I will be pushing for the Scottish senior national record of 2.31m [ set by Geoff Parsons in 1994]. For Rio, the ‘A’ standard will be 2.31m, so to realistically aim for the Olympics I have to jump that anyway. I will have gained another four years’ experience. By then, at 24, I should be at or reaching my peak, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t make the team.”
Another Scot headi ng to Sheffield will be Perth hurdler Eilidh Child, whose 52.88sec for fourth place in the 400m flat at the Emirates Arena last Saturday was, in fact, a Scottish native i ndoor record, beating Melanie Neef ’s 52.91sec set in 1994. She will compete again over 400m flat with the aim of securing a top- two finish and qualifying for Gothenburg.
Lasswade athlete Guy Learmonth, meanwhile, clocked a European Indoor 800m qualifying time of 1:47.94 at the Vienna Indoor Classic last Tuesday. It now ranks him eighth indoor in Europe this year and puts him in a strong position going into the trials.
Also l ooking promising is Dundee’s Laura Muir, who clocked a personal best of 4:12.39 to win the 1500m in Vienna, running some 12 seconds faster than she posted over the same distance at the British Athletics International match in Glasgow only three days earlier.