Chris O'Hare and Jamie Bowie have been backed to bring home medals from next week's European Indoor Championships after their selection to a 39-strong Great Britain & Northern Ireland team for the four-day showpiece in Prague.
The duo will join fellow Scots Guy Learmonth, Allan Smith, Kirsten McAslan and Laura Muir, who had already secured automatic qualification in the wake of claiming UK titles in Sheffield last week.
Muir has been granted her wish for a place in the 3000m with Bowie, who landed world indoor silver last year, regaining his 4x400 relay spot. While Boston-based O'Hare, a European 1500m bronze medallist outdoors last summer, travels with a ringing endorsement despite a sub-par show showing in Birmingham four days ago which he attributed to jet-lag.
"It was just a bad day at the office," UK Athletics performance director Neil Black insisted. "We're really confident Chris will do his much more natural and normal thing which is perform brilliantly at the championships. When you look at it, 'you might think: 'crikey what happened there?' But with further conversations and understanding, there's no concern."
Reigning world champion Richard Kilty - sidelined of late with a back problem - has boosted medal hopes by opting in for the 60 metres at the eleventh hour, along with Olympic long jump gold medallist Greg Rutherford whose impressive personal best of 8.17m last Saturday has swayed him towards the opportunity to add to his championship collection in the Czech capital.
"Greg's a winner, that's what he wants to do," Black underlined. "This is one of the titles he hasn't won. We've been in close communication with Greg so we knew he was in good shape. This wasn't in his original plans. But you're talking about the Olympic champion, someone who's proven time and again that he knows how to do it."
Elsewhere, Glasgow Caledonian student James Bowness has been confirmed along side Learmonth in the 800m. And 17-year-old prospect Morgan Lake has been granted a surprise slot in the pentathlon along side title favourite Katarina Johnson-Thompson, who has been tipped to snatch away Jessica Ennis-Hill's British record.
"We don't want to put any pressure on Katarina but she's got high expectations and sets herself very high targets along with her coach Mike Holmes," Black added. "So I'd be very surprised if it isn't a target. But everything's got to go brilliantly on the day to achieve these things."
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