MUIR EARNS RIGHT TO MIX WITH ELITE
Having achieved their target and made it to Brazil, two of the Sunday Herald’s
Runner is full of confidence after breaking record and unconcerned about pressure. Graeme Macpherson reports
LAURA Muir is standing on the back of a utility truck that has just driven through a fireball and on to the running track at the Olympic Stadium in London. Behind her in another truck is Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world. In the vehicle ahead stands Kim Collins, the former 100 metres world and Commonwealth champion still going strong at the age of 40.
A few hours later and Muir is back on the track and breaking the 12- year-old British 1500m record held by Dame Kelly Holmes, who sends her a private message to congratulate her. If it all sounds like a rather peculiar dream then it actually happened to Muir at the Anniversary Games just nine days ago.
There is a connection between the first and second parts of the story. A short while ago Muir, not the most naturally gregarious of figures, would have shied away from such a publicity stunt. The same with the pre-race interview that was beamed on to the big screens to the 30,000 or so athletics fans gathered inside the stadium. Both are signs of the burgeoning confidence the 23-yearold is feeling as she prepares to head to her first Olympic Games.
“Doing that was great fun,” said the Glasgow University veterinary student. “I did feel a little bit at the time ‘should I really be on this?’ when you’ve got Kim Collins in front of me and Usain Bolt behind. That was pretty surreal, but I feel I’ve justified my place on the truck now.
“Maybe at the time a few folk were thinking ‘who is this girl?’ but hopefully by the end of the night they knew my name. In the past, I might have shied away from something like that. Maybe I would have felt I wasn’t worthy of doing that or being interviewed on the big screens. But I feel I’ve earned my place now.”
Fifth at the world championships last year and having just run the second fastest time of the year over 1500m, there is a growing feeling that Muir might just have a chance of a medal in Rio.
She does not modestly dismiss the suggestion, nor does she believe there is any extra pressure on her following her performance in London. She is running well and will look to do so again in her heat, and then hopefully the semi-final and final. Should she fulfil that aim, then there will be no teary post-mortem if she returns home empty-handed.
“Now I see pressure as a good thing,” she says. “It means people expect you to do well. I just take it in my stride. Come the final anything can happen, athletics can be so unpredictable. If I come off the track feeling I’ve given 100 per cent then I can be proud of myself, even if I might be disappointed with the result. If it’s not enough for a medal then so be it. As long as I’ve given everything.
“It’s hard to say how the final might go until you see how the earlier rounds unfold. I’ll probably get an idea from the heats and semis how people are running and what shape they are in. A race like ours can always be run in several different ways, so my coach and I will chat over the different options beforehand. If I reach the final, I’ll try to treat it just like any other race. I’d imagine if you started focusing too much on it being an Olympic final then that might overwhelm you.”
THE hope is that, whatever the outcome, the race does not become tarnished by the spectre of doping like its 2012 predecessor, now considered “the dirtiest race of all time” after six of the top nine finishers later tested positive. Muir, visited by doping control that same night after breaking Holmes’ record, hopes so, too.
“It’s sad what’s happened since 2012, especially in my chosen event. But that’s behind us now. I just hope come Rio it will be a clean race. You just want the clean athletes to get the medals they deserve. You can’t know that for sure, of course, so all I can do is focus on myself.
“I know I’m clean, I have a clear conscience and I’ll just go out there and do the best I can. Hopefully that will be enough to get a medal or at least do as well as I can.
“There’s been a wee bit of a cloud hanging over the sport with everything that has been going on with Russia. But when you see the performances of the British athletes over the last few weeks, I think that’s helped lift that cloud a little bit. The public can believe in us.
“It will be tough in Rio but you have to try not to focus on the negative stuff and focus on trying to put in strong performances. That’s all I can do. I’ll race whoever is there on the start line and see what happens.”