LAURA MUIR lost the battle but won the war last night as the Scot lifted the overall Diamond Race title despite coming second in the 1500 metres at the Weltklasse meeting in Zurich.
The 23-year-old bolted past Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon on the final bend but was then pipped by American rival Shannon Rowbury’s lunge over the line.
But with Kipyegon fading to seventh, Muir – whose time of 3:57.85 means she now has the three quickest runs in UK history - topped the season standings with 40 points from her Diamond League outings with the Kenyan marooned on 36.
“I never expected anything like this,” she said. “There is not really something I will need to improve for next year. I am the Diamond Race winner, this is big for me. Because running in a Diamond League race is already something special for me. I did not know at first that I won the Diamond Race because it depended on Faith Kipyegon, whether she would finish third or fourth.”
Lynsey Sharp was the last woman home after fading to 11th in the 800 metres as Rio gold medallist Caster Semenya took victory, and the Diamond Race title, ahead of Francine Niyonsaba, leaving the Scot fourth in the points table.
Eilidh Doyle, who can clinch her Diamond Race by winning in Brussels next Friday, came third in the 400m hurdles behind Shamier Little and Sara Petersen.
Elsewhere, Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson repeated her Olympic victory in the 200m by 0.01 seconds over silver medallist Dafne Schippers with Dina Asher-Smith fourth but the Dutchwoman still claimed the season crown.
Meanwhile Muir is to take on fellow Scots Steph Twell and Eilish McColgan over a mile at next weekend’s Great North CityGames in Newcastle. While Andy Butchart, who missed Zurich due to injury, will face former world champion Bernard Lagat in the men’s mile – three weeks after the American pipped him to fifth place in the Olympic 5000m final.
“It’ll be good to return to Newcastle,” the Scot said. “I pulled up short last time out so I’ve got a bit of unfinished business there. The whole Olympic experience was amazing, to finish sixth in an Olympic final is something that I’m very proud of and it’ll be good to see everybody again for the Great North CityGames.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here