ASIDE from a few workmen in day-glo vests, the Emirates Arena was near deserted when Andrew Butchart and Chris O’Hare popped in for some last-minute preparations yesterday. It will be a different story in six days’ time, when they will have the cream of the continent’s athletes to contend with as they go for glory over 3000m at the European Indoor Athletics Championships.
O’Hare and Butchart are based Stateside these days and don’t have the luxury of training day in day out at the championship venue like Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie, but they are determined to make the most of the backing of the home crowd in a race which it was revealed yesterday will see them take on all three members of fearsome Ingebritsen family. Not only does that mean attempting to halt the startling progress of 18-year-old Jakob, who is already is the outdoor continental champion over 1500m and 5000m, but it means attempting to put a spanner in the works of his brother’ Henrik and Filip’s plans to make it a clean sweep.
“I have never witnessed noise before in a stadium like there was at Glasgow in 2014 so I am fully expecting the same kind of atmosphere,” said O’Hare, who has spent the last few days successfully attempting to secure tickets for his family. “My mum and dad didn’t have tickets for the final but thank you very much for everyone’s help. We got sorted and no longer need any tickets. This week is invaluable for me and Butchy to go over to the Emirates to get some work done.”
A year on from breaking the navicular bone in his foot, Butchart dropped out of a high class 1500m race at the Muller Indoor Grand Prix on Saturday but the 27-year-old, a sixth-placed finisher at the Rio Olympics over 5,000m has done more than enough to convince selectors that he is worthy of a spot.
“I raced here back in 2016 - Jan or Feb, a 3k,” said Butchart. “It’s quite hard to get on the track at times. But I’ll be used to it by the time the Championships come round. The Emirates Arena gets USED, that is for sure. There isn’t two or three weeks that goes by without the track being used, whether it is snooker or badminton. It is good because there are so many places in Scotland for communities which just aren’t being used, or are used for a year then just mothballed.
“ I didn’t compete in the last European champs but I was 90% sure I would have got a medal there,” he added. “So there is no reason why I shouldn’t do it this time. I raced Adel Mechaal [of Spain] in Boston this season who beat me by a second but I am pretty sure I can beat him in Glasgow. Then there are the Ingebritsens. They will be up there, the ones I have to beat. But I will race it the way I want to race it.”
First up for Butchart, though, is the small matter of the Lindsays X Country event at the Callendar Park in Falkirk today. A proving ground for so many of Scotland’s top athletes, Butchart was originally on the entry list but proximity to the Euros will limit him to a watching brief instead. But as a former winner of the individual event, not to mention a key cog in a Central AC team which is going for their ninth team victory in a row, he has plenty invested in the outcome. With Olympians Steph Twell and Derek Hawkins also set to compete, around 2,400 athletes have entered, the highest for 25 years. “I am ecstatic about those numbers, I think everyone in the sport is,” said Scottish Athletics CEO Mark Munro.
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