Athletics: Weir guest of honour at Scots athletics annual dinner

Published on 25/09/2012 02:41

Quadruple gold medallist David Weir is coming to Glasgow next month as the guest of honour at a special dinner.

The Paralympic hero, one of the stars of Great Britain’s “Summer of Sport”, will address the scottishathletics Annual Awards Dinner on Saturday 27 October at the city’s Marriott hotel.

Weir will also deliver a Scottish Disability Sport workshop in the afternoon at the Commonwealth Arena as part of the International Festival of Athletics Coaching Conference (IFAC).

Tony Minichiello, who coached Jessica Ennis, is also on the list for that event in Glasgow, which coincides with the scottishathletics annual dinner.

Weir, MBE, won a total of six gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Paralympic Games, and has won the London Marathon on six occasions.

“We are absolutely delighted that David Weir has agreed to attend our annual awards – he has been such an inspirational figure in a marvellous summer of athletics,” said Nigel Holl, chief executive of scottishathletics.

“To have someone like David meet us and talk to us is a tremendous honour and clearly there’s an awful lot for coaches to learn from listening to and working with someone like Toni Minichiello at IFAC.

“In fact, it promises to be a great weekend with the conference attracting some big names from within the sport, our awards dinner and the National Cross Country relay event at Cumbernauld earlier in the day on the Saturday.”

Weir’s four golds at the London 2012 Paralympics included Great Britain’s last one of theGames. After nine days of gruelling competition on the track, he won the marathon in a time of 1:30:20.

After the race, Weir paid tribute to the home support all the British athletes received during the games when he said: “It didn’t matter what position you came in, they were still behind you and they still loved you.”

In competing in the 2012 Paralympics, Weir had taken part in seven races in ten days and completed 35.3 miles in his pursuit of four gold medals for Team GB and NI.

• Scotland’s Robbie Simpson pulled off a superb victory in the McCain Mountain Challenge Home International event in the Lake District. The Deeside athlete won the senior men’s race at Melmerby and was one of four Scottish medallists on the day with the others Fife AC’s Halina Rees (silver in the Under-18s), Law and District’s Andrew Lawler (bronze in Under-18s) and Garscube’s Catriona Graves (bronze in the Under-16s).

Catriona Buchanan (Ochil) was also the best Women’s Under-23 with a fifth-place overall finish with Murray Strain (Hunters Bog Trotters) fourth in the men’s race.