LAURA MUIR and Jemma Reekie can deploy the priceless lessons from their impressive campaign to chase Olympic medals next summer, their coach Andy Young has insisted.

12 months ago, few outside Scotland were properly aware of Reekie’s immense potential despite European titles at junior and Under-23 level and quiet confidence from within her circle.

Then, she was best known as one of Muir’s young training partners at their Glasgow base. However she has emerged from the shadow of the European 1500 metres champion to become a bona fide contender for gold, should the Tokyo Games proceeded as scheduled.

Her new-found A-List status was emphatically underlined with a second Diamond League win of the season in Rome over 800 metres on Thursday in what was her seventh time under the two minutes mark this year.

The Scots’ dual friendship and rivalry will be intensely intriguing to watch in the campaigns ahead, with both likely to end 2020 as the quickest women in their main events.

And Young believes he has collected a mine of insights from two months of criss-crossing Europe that can help the pair plot a route to further glories aplenty.

He said: “It was a condensed season, lots of races, but without a championships. That gave a chance for me to try some slightly different things, and gather some information and data. That can help with my planning and approach for Tokyo and beyond. There’ll be a bit of a break for the pair of them now, then the road to Tokyo 2021 winter training begins.”

The precise route map remains to be confirmed, courtesy of coronavirus. Cancellations are already creeping into the cross-country calendar. Few expect the indoor campaign to escape a decimation with next March’s world championships in Nanjing an assumed casualty.

Even the likes of the UK’s annual leg of the World Athletics Indoor Tour – shared in turn between Glasgow and Birmingham – is thought to be in doubt due a combination of pandemic protocols and the grave uncertainty surrounding UK Athletics’ media and sponsorship partnerships.

“Who knows what indoor season will look like?” Young acknowledged. “It’s hard to plan anything definitively at this stage in regard training camps or races through the winter. The best bet is to develop plans, and back up plans and maybe back up, back up plans. And be prepared to finalise decisions or options late.”