Athletics: Child follows silver with gold in relay

SCOTLAND’S Eilidh Child rounded off a fantastic three days of competition at the European Indoor Championships by winning two medals and setting a new Scottish record at Gothenburg.

They were the first individual medals won by a Scot at the European Indoors for 19 years.

Having won both her heat and semi-final of the 400 metres on Friday and Saturday, the 26-year-old Edinburgh University graduate ran a near-perfect race in yesterday’s final to track her great rival and team-mate Perri Shakes-Drayton, the GB pair capturing gold and silver in 50.85 seconds, a new personal best for Shakes-Drayton, and 51.45 secs, another Scottish record by .05 secs for Child.

They then went on to play a big part in the British 4x400m relay victory, Child leading off in her second fastest time of the weekend, just a few short hours after her remarkable individual performance, while Shakes-Drayton scorched home on the anchor leg with Shana Cox on leg two and former Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu on stage three.

Dundee’s Laura Muir, like Child a product of Kinross High, had excelled in making the final of the 1500m at the age of only 19 and setting a personal best of 4:12.36 in doing so.

Though she could not have been expected to match that in the final, given the short recovery time, the way the race unfolded scarcely helped with the Swedish Ethiopian Abeba Aregawi building up a huge lead early on and the rest being content to idle for several laps before indulging in a late burn-up which left Muir struggling for pace at the back. She finished eighth in 4:18.39.

Elsewhere, Jordan Charters (Lasswade) won the long jump with a leap of 6.48m at the Scottish Under-20 
Indoor Championships at the Emirates Arena in 
Glasgow on Saturday.

Sam Revie (Edinburgh AC) was second in both sprints, the 60m in 7.16 secs and the 200m in 22.38, while Scottish 100m champion Kathryn Christie (EAC) was second in the 60m in 7.71 secs.