Athletics: Murray has to find more for a World place

Published on Friday 10 July 2009 09:43

CAPITAL athlete Freya Murray goes into this weekend's Aviva World Trials and UK Championships in Birmingham boosted by a personal best for the 5000 metres in Manchester recently.

Despite torrential rain, the 25-year-old Edinburgh AC member clocked 15 mins 44.37 secs to beat her best by over 20 seconds.

Murray may, however, have more chance of clinching the UK title than a place in the team for next month's World Championships in Berlin as the UK selection times are a demanding 15:10.0 for the A standard (automatic choice if finishing in the first two in the trials) and 15:25.0 for the B standard.

The current Scottish Cross country champion may well be more interested in another time, the Scottish qualifying standard for next year's Commonwealth Games in Delhi – 15:35.0.

Anglo Scot Laura Kenney might achieve that, having been extremely unlucky to miss the Delhi standard by a mere 0.76sec at a Grand Prix meeting.

Two Scots must already be pencilled into the UK team for Berlin, Pitreavie's Eilidh Child and Glasgow's Lee McConnell. Child may even give this weekend's meeting a miss to concentrate on preparing for the European Under-23 Championships in Lithuania.

Child is ranked second in Europe for this age group in the 400 metres hurdles behind fellow Brit Perri Shakes-Drayton and clocked 55.36 behind her at the British Under-23 championships, yet another PB and one which also gives her another A standard Berlin qualifier.

With UK No.1 Tasha Danvers out injured, Child is almost certainly guaranteed a Berlin place regardless of whether she runs this weekend or not.

Former New Year Sprint winner Nick Smith produced his best run of the season last weekend to win the 100 metres at the British League Premiership in Manchester in 10.34 secs with a following wind (+4mps), but the Dunfermline flyer needs to find even more to have a chance of regaining the relay place he secured in the 2004 Athens Olympics. The Delhi time is 10.25 secs but windy marks are not allowed.

After her back-to-form leap of 1.80m to win the Scottish title at Pitreavie, capital high jumper Jayne Nisbet managed 1.78m for an U-23 championship bronze and a podium place is certainly within her reach this weekend.