When the Scottish 1500 metres record was last lowered 27 years ago, it came at the close of an intense duel in Oslo between Yvonne Murray and Liz McColgan, when the former made history.
Possession of the mark passed last night to Laura Muir and her predecessors would surely approve after the 21-year-old from Perthshire delivered a tenacious late burst at the Diamond League in Paris to enhance her stock further.
With the first five finishers breaking the four-minute barrier, Muir was short by just seven-hundredths of a second but it was still a massive step forward. Only five British athletes have run faster, with Laura Weightman - who edged Muir for the UK title last weekend - fractionally behind in a race won by the Netherlands' Sifan Hassan.
It sets things up nicely for Muir's next outing, at the Sainsbury's Grand Prix at Hampden on Saturday when she will face off for the first time with European champion and compatriot Lynsey Sharp.
"I showed in the indoor season at the Emirates Arena and in Birmingham that I run really well in front of a home crowd," said Muir, who is one of the Sunday Herald's Six to Follow. "It's going to be a great run-through for the Games, to see how everything works and to get a feel for the stadium. It's going to be an amazing meeting."
There was frustration for Eilish McColgan, though, after she dropped into 13th place in the 3000m steeplechase, finishing in 9:54:56, as Ethiopian Hiwot Ayalew out-paced Emma Coburn over the final lap. The UK champion has confirmed plans to see specialist help for her hurdling in her quest to narrow the gap with the event's elite.
"I've started speaking to a coach at Loughborough to look at my hurdling and that will be reinforced into next year, possibly even with trying to hurdle with both legs," said McColgan.
Meanwhile, British sprint hope Chijindu Ujah was sixth in the 100m won by Mike Rodgers of the United States.
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 hereComments are closed on this article