It’s history the making as Muir goes for Euro gold
FOR a woman used to competing in high quality fields on the world stage, Laura Muir is expected to enjoy a relative walk in the park in pursuit of gold in Berlin this evening.
No one in the British team has been made a stronger favourite than Muir in a 1500m field that is light on truly elite opposition after Sifan Hassan’s decision to focus on the 5,000m.
Muir’s personal best of 3min 55sec is around five quicker than the next best, her team-mate Laura Weightman. It would therefore be a massive upset if Muir doesn’t become the first British woman in the history of the European Championships to win 1500m gold.
Kelly Holmes came closest with silver in 1994 and Weightman took bronze in Zurich four years ago but all signs point towards Muir taking her first major outdoor medal, having won world indoor silver and bronze in the winter on the back of two European indoor titles. The big question is all about what will follow at the worlds and Olympics, given the global scene is so stacked in Muir’s disciplines.
In the 25-year-old Scot’s favour is that everything she has achieved so far has been alongside a degree course in veterinary medicine. She was working up to 80 hours a week at university before the world indoors championships and with that degree completed, she can focus on atheltics full-time.
As a measure of how crammed her schedule was, a trip to Canada after the championships will be her first holiday in five years. She said: ‘It’s the end of the season and I’ve got some big years coming up so I might not get the opportunity to go away so much. I’ll start off in Toronto and then off to Calgary in the Rocky Mountains and hopefully see some grizzly bears.’