LAURA Muir told yesterday of how she has learned to live with the limelight. The 25-year-old, who bids to complete a historic double double in tonight’s 1500m final at the European Indoor Athletics Championships, climbed onto a podium at the Emirates Arena yesterday to collect her third continental indoor gold medal, won in such spectacular fashion in the 3,000m late on Friday.
Assuming everything continues to run smoothly in her recovery, quite simply there should be no-one out there capable of stopping her rack up number four. With Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen, - blown away on Friday night by a 28.60-second last 200m in which Muir well and truly put “the welly down” - concentrating on only one event in Glasgow this weekend, the 25-year-old from Milnathort has a personal best which is nearly four seconds than anything Poland’s Sofia Ennaoui or Simona Vrzalova of the Czech Republic can match.
Glasgow’s poster girl – an official ambassador of these games on a track she had run more often than anyone – admits she feels inspired by expectation these days, not daunted by it. It is all a far cry from the awkward, shy prospect who seemed burdened at times by the hopes perhaps unfairly heaped on her at the Commonwealth Games in 2014.
“I’m not someone who seeks the limelight,” Muir told scottishathletics.org.uk yesterday. “But having it, I am like ‘okay, it is there because people are expecting me to do well’. It is more of a support than a pressure, it is nice.
“If this event had happened a couple of years ago I might have thought ‘woah, I don’t know how I am going to deal with it’,” she added. “But to be honest I have just been more excited about this event more than anything else. I just love running, that is it really. I know that I train really hard, that I have so many friends and family in the crowd and that I just know I am going to do the best I can.”
It isn’t just Muir’s temperament which has undergone a transformation. Years of dedication to nutrition and training, and simple miles in the legs, make her a different proposition entirely to a young athlete who didn’t always have things her own way.
“I competed at loads of Scottish championships - indoors, outdoors, the cross country at Irvine,” said Muir. “I remember battling the wind and the hills there, I am pretty sure I was lapped indoors, Irvine I think I came ninth two or three times and it was top eight to get to the UK championships. So you know, no matter how well you do, there is always scope to improve, there is so much which can come in your later career.”
We were into Saturday by the time Muir was free of her media responsibilities and able to begin her prep for tonight’s 1500m final. Her coach Andy Young admitted that the process of re-stocking on sugars and protein had begun pretty much as soon as she crossed the finish line.
“The prep began as soon I got to her after the final. Then you have a day to recover. But the recovery after the 1500m was much easier than it will be after the 3000m.
“That was one of the fastest times ever in the 3000m, maybe the third fastest ever in Europe. She demolished her own championship record by over five seconds. If you can do that, you’re in a good place for the 1500m.”
2017 European bronze medallist Eilish McColgan, beaten into seventh on Friday night, admitted that her fellow one-time Dundee Hawkhill Harriers team-mate was continuing to raise the bar. “She is pushing everyone,” said McColgan. “She drags us along and I have no doubt that she will continue to do that. That is what happens. One person just blasts through the barriers and shows that we can compete against everyone else even though we come from a small nation.” Muir is due on the track at 8.12pm for her 1500m final. It would be a surprise indeed if she does not have pride of place in the victory ceremony at 9.02pm as well.
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