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SALFabFebruary The week that was
It was the bleak February week that Storm Ciara hit these shores, closely followed by Storm Dennis.
Not that too people many in athletics in Scotland noticed – given the Records that were falling to our female athletes on either side of the Atlantic ocean.
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From Saturday 8 February to Friday 14 February, we noted
*Four Senior Scottish Records at 1500m, mile indoors; High Jump; 60m sprint
*Chris O’Hare won the Wannamaker Mile at the Millrose Games
*Scottish U20 Record for 3000m Indoors
*Course Record U20 Women at Armagh 3k
Here, Peter Jardine reports on The Week That Was
SATURDAY 8 FEBRUARY
Afternoon:
GB international Morgan Lake looked favourite for the High Jump event taking place in Hustopece in the Czech Republic. But Nikki Manson had other ideas.
The Giffnock North AC athlete, who had opened 2020 fill of promise, had broken her own Scottish Indoor Record with a leap of 1.92m at the 4J Studios Senior Champs at the Emirates Arena a fortnight earlier.
Come Hustopece and Nikki continued her great form by pushing the bar up to 1.93m and once again raising the standards for Scottish female high jumping.
Coach Ray Bobrownicki savoured the moment on Twitter and Nikki’s boyfriend, Sam O’Kane, can always be relied upon on these occasions for video footage. He didn’t disappoint!
Late Evening
If Nikki thought the thoroughly-merited spotlight on her across our social media channels would last, she was to be mistaken.
The Millrose Games in New York are late afternoon in America and thus significant Mile events featuring Scots were happening around 10.30pm to 11pm.
We were more than happy to burn the midnight oil, of course, when word came through of a quite superb indoor run by Jemma Reekie as she broke not one but two British Records for the mile and the 1500m – to add to her 800m run a week previoysly.
Jemma clocked 4:17 and had a split of 4:00.52 with both those times eclipsing Laura Muir’s British Records. Jemma, memorably, explained how she phoned coach Andy Young immediately after the race from trackside Stateside and asked: ‘Is 4:17 a good time for the Indoor Mile?’
Yes, Jemma, it was – taking her as it did to No 5 on the World all-time list.
Chris O’Hare followed Jemma onto the track for the Men’s Wannamaker Mile. And the American-based Scot pulled off the second win of his career in that event, storming home in 3:55.61 in a field which included Nick Willis and Filip Ingebrigtsen.
The winning margin for Chris was almost two seconds and he’d a smile as wide as the Hudson River when joined by his two sons on the track for the trophy presentation. MONDAY 10 FEBRUARY
Reekie’s performance in New York started to make waves across the Atlantic.
Calling her an ‘overnight sensation’ seemed unfair, given European U20 and European U23 (double) success in recent years, but the scale of the impact was not in dispute.
Here are the thoughts of Paula Radcliffe from a piece with Athletics Weekly:
‘She’s running really well and I’m really happy for her because I think she has worked really hard,’ said former world marathon record-holder Radcliffe.
‘When you start to run better then your confidence gets better and you believe you can go out and compete with the other girls and it is producing some great racing.
‘She has probably fed off seeing what Laura could do and what (Canadian record-holder) Gabriela DeBues-Stafford was doing and just thought ‘well if I’m training with them and I’m keeping up with them in training then of course I can produce that in a race’.
WEDNESDAY 12 FEBRUARY
With Jemma’s name suddenly up in lights, Scottish attention turned to the Athlone Indoor meeting in Ireland. At first glance, the prospect of more records didn’t seem too likely – but Eloise Walker was soon to break that notion.
Who else but Reekie held the U20 3000m Indoor Record at 9:28 from three years? No sooner had she been taking British marks off Muir than she was losing one to training partner Walker. Eloise came up with a very fine run for 9:21 in a race where the Vinco footage focused in the main on Irish favourite Ciara Mageen and GB’s Rosie Clarke at the very front end of the race.
whose group was having quite a week.
THURSDAY 13 FEBRUARY
Almost exactly 24 hours later, and a road Course Record was to fall to another young Scot at the Armagh Road Races in Northern Ireland. And, yes, you’ve guessed it – the athlete ‘losing out’ was none other than Eloise Walker.
Eloise had run 9:27 at Armagh in 2019 to land the U20 Women’s Course Record in that particular event. There was a certain symmetry, then, in Megan Keith of Inverness
Harriers taking the proverbial baton with a run of 9:24 which gave her the U20 win and Record as well as ninth place overall.
Athletics Weekly hit the streets – with Reekie’s New York run making headlines.
FRIDAY 14 FEBRUARY
Lunch-time
Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie were centre stage at the Emirates as the media gathered for the Muller GP preview press conference.
Comparisons with the Seb Coe-Steve Ovett middle distance rivalry are starting to rate a mention. If that happens, it seems it will be restricted to the track itself.
LAURA on JEMMA:
‘I’ve trained with Jemma for about four years and she has come on so well. It is credit to our coach Andy Young for the way she has progressed.
I’ve noticed year on year she has been getting closer with the speed stuff. The past six months she has been faster still. But that will help to bring me on.’
JEMMA on LAURA:
‘On and off the track I could not ask for a better training partner and friend. She has helped me through a lot and I have helped her through a lot.’
Dame Kelly Holmes also featured in the Scottish Daily Mail that Friday, effusive in her support for Laura in particular while recognising the progress made by Jemma.
Early Evening:
Surely the scottishathletics comms team was due a wee break, on Valentine’s Day, and with the Muller GP looming the following day?
Alisha Rees had other ideas. Competing at BUCS, Alisha eased into the 60m final comfortably and looked well capable of threatening the 7.33 National Record she had set in Glasgow on January 26. She did so, with 7.32, in the final with the only disappointment being she had to settle for silver as Cheyanne Evans-Gray clocked 7.28 with a CBP performance.
Still, we’d waited 17 years for a Scottish woman to break Susan Burnside’s 60m Record, so twice in 19 days definitely counted as compensation for Rees and coach Leon Baptiste.
So, by 7pm, we’d yet another Record to put up in lights . . .
