Scottish athletes form is a bonus but no shock to performance director Harkins

Since then Josh Kerr has won the NCAA title, the most prestigious in American college sport, with fellow Scot Neil Gourley finishing fifth in the same race, ahead of Wightman’s astonishing run in Norway on Thursday which saw him bide his time, gradually working his way into position from eighth place at the bell before powering into the lead on the final bend then maintaining form on the home straight.

He claimed afterwards to be in ‘total shock’, noting that he had felt lucky to be in the race having only been allocated a place in it three days earlier, yet the authoritative way he ran belied that.

What is all the more remarkable, though, is that neither Kerr nor Wightman can lay claim to a Scottish season’s best because that was set last month by their compatriot Chris O’Hare, all of which adds considerable spice to the forthcoming British Championships in Birmingham which will double as World Championship trials.

Whereas as recently as two years ago it would have been doubtful as to whether a Scot might feature in the 1500m final at that meet, there is now every prospect of at least two of those three earning the right to be in action at the World Championships in August.

While stressing that all of the credit lies with the athletes and their coaches, Scottish Athletics’ performance director Roger Harkins has been considerably less surprised than young Wightman claimed to be by their emergence because he believes he has seen the environment that has allowed them to thrive develop over the past decade or so.

“I’m obviously really happy for all the Scottish athletes who are stepping up just now, but the breadth has been developing for eight to 10 years,” he said.

“Our previous endurance coach Mike Johnston had a plan that he put in place and his work has been continued by his successor Mike Pollard who is now my right hand man.

“So we knew this had been coming for some time. It was just a matter of when it happened.”

He noted that as athletes come through patience has to be shown, but that the depth of talent made it just a matter of time.

“Sometimes when there appears to be stagnation it can be that just one of maybe six elements is missing and it is just a question of putting that in place,” he observed.

Right now it seems that more and more of the Scottish athletes are putting all of those pieces into the right places with confidence perhaps the most important of them.

That has been contributed to by the policy of getting them into overseas camps, particularly at altitude, where they are rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s best, opportunities which both show them what they have to do and help to demystify future championship rivals.

Harkins cited the example of Jemma Reekie, a training partner of Laura Muir, in pointing out how much the Scots are now feeding off one another in that regard.

“Our athletes have created a feeling of self-belief that is remarkable and it is important that they can see what it takes,” he said.

“It always gets difficult for everyone at different stages, so if you get days where you’re thinking that you’re not feeling as good it is important to see that you still have to keep working.

Even so he admitted that having so many contenders for World Championships is something of a bonus this year.

“Obviously getting 15 of them to the Olympics at Rio last year was wonderful, but athletes can tend to go a bit flat the year after the Olympics so I was thinking that might happen and it’s consequently been great that so many of them have come out and are doing things,” he noted.

“We probably had more of them at Rio that we expected and then they dropped the qualifying standard for the hammer which let Chris Bennett and Mark Dry in. I’d have been really happy with 13 but we were absolutely delighted with 15 and I just want them not to burn out now.”