'I just eased up. I could see on the screen there were two of us clear'

Sports writer

Thursday 9 August 2012

LYNSEY SHARP buried all controversy surrounding her 800 metres selection when she stalked Olympic champion Pamela Jelimo yesterday and cruised home second (2:01.41) in her heat, qualifying for tonight's semi-final.

Scotland's Lynsey Sharp checks the scoreboard after finishing second in her heat. Picture: Nick Ponty

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Doug Gillon

The Edinburgh law graduate was the only Brit in the event. Head coach Charles van Commenee excluded all those with the A qualifying standard, and lingering acrimony meant the Scot received none of the customary good luck wishes from UK rivals. She dismissed this, and a Twitter campaign which sought to have her withdrawn, but admitted: "It was in the back of my mind".

"We're not friends," she said of her tormentors, laughing. "We never have been, but Marilyn [Okoro, one of those omitted] is on the team [4 x 400 squad]. I've spoken to her. She's a really nice girl and I don't think she would ever say anything bad. I haven't heard from the other girls, and I don't really care."She ran a text-book race, tracking the Kenyan. With three to qualify she might have conserved more energy, but the announcer said only the first two went through. "I asked an official if it was three, and he confirmed it. It worried me a bit. I didn't want to come third. I wanted to come second anyway. I just eased up at the end. I could see on the screen that there were two of us clear."It was her first race since taking European silver in Helsinki, followed by training in Portugal, where she racked up a series of lifetime-best sessions. Yet she played down her achievement: "I've run in higher quality fields this year."But nothing approaching tonight. She has the slowest personal best (2:00.52.) of anyone in the first of the three semi finals (at 7.30). It again includes Jelimo (best, 1:54.01), World Indoor silver medallist Nataliya Lupu (1:58.46), Russia's Yekaterina Poistogova (1:57.93), who had never broken 2:02 until this year, plus the Colombian and Greek record-holders. Six have bests of under 2:00.0, and four are inside 1:58. The first two and two fastest losers make the final.Sharp and coach Dave Sunderland have their race plan. If the opening lap is 55-56, she won't go with it. "I'll run my own race," she said. "I'm not going to get a personal best off that pace."Her mother, former Scottish two-lap champion Carol Sharp, and her sister, Carly, were in the third row overlooking the start. Sharp saw them and visibly relaxed. Her dad, Cameron, the 1982 European 200m silver medallist, who was seriously injured in a car accident in 1991, was unable to go to London. He had a bad fall some weeks ago. "I have a huge telly," he told me. "Lynsey seemed almost life-size. She did really well."His daughter knew he was "very proud. We skyped the night before. He's just learned to use it, so all I can hear is 'Hello, Hello' and I'm shouting 'Hi!'"I'd just got into my bed, so it was a really quick call. My grandad [Cameron's dad, in Kilmarnock] has just got skype too. They ask me how to use it. I keep saying I can't explain. Just call me on my phone."She has seen her father run only on YouTube. He did not know who she was when he came out of a coma after five days."I've been brought up in an athletics family and have never been forced to do anything, but I guess it's just inspiring to grow up in a family like that. I want to make dad proud and follow in his footsteps as well. This is the first year I have seen emotion in him, which is nice."

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'I just eased up. I could see on the screen there were two of us clear'

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