Athletics: Morrison the home hope in Holyrood's World Duathlon

Published on Thursday 2 September 2010 12:27

Broxburn's Catriona Morrison hopes to pedal her way to a fourth world title at the World Duathlon Championships in Edinburgh on Sunday.

After winning all four of her races this year, an Achilles tendon injury forced Morrison to miss further warm-up races in France and Germany and also left her short of training for the running sections of the duathlon.

Luckily, her cycling, which makes up the middle 40km of the 55km event around Holyrood Park and Arthur's Seat, should more than compensate.

"After winning the Lanzarote Ironman race in May (despite losing 45 minutes when a bike chain snapped], I had an Achilles issue and didn't start running again until a month ago," she explained. "It's not been ideal and I'm probably not running as strongly as I would like, but I'm in as good shape as I can be. I'm biking very well, and it's a tough bike course here, so that's definitely in my favour.

"I came to Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago to go training on the course. All the roads will be closed off today, so I'll have another bash at it then.

"It's almost the same course that I won the European title on in 2007, so if the race goes that way again, then that'll be good!"

In the absence of defending champion Vendula Frintova of the Czech Republic, Morrison's main rivals as she bids to recapture the title she last won in 2006, include last year's silver medallist Sandra Levenez from France and Holland's reigning European champion Ruth Van der Meijden.