Athletics: Claire Gibson jets to Japan for IAAF event

The Kilbarchan AAC club captain will race at the Kawasaki Athletics Grand Prix on Saturday.

Gibson, 29, won her first Great Britain vest at the Kelvin Hall in January and later won the British Indoor title at 1500m with a run which saw her miss out on the World Indoors in Turkey by a fraction of a second.

The weekend event in Japan is part of the IAAF World Series but the quality of opposition is not yet clear.

Meanwhile, US-based Dave Bishop is preparing for an outing at the new Olympic Stadium.

Bishop ran the fastest 1500m by a Scotsman for 18 years last weekend. His time of 3.37.51 took him fifth in the Scottish all-time list and was inside the Olympic B standard.

His coach, James Thie said: “Dave’s made a lot of progress in the past couple of years at the University of New Mexico and has started to really show that in the last fortnight.

“He’s set a PB in two successive meetings in America and to get under the Olympic B standard was a real step forward. We’re looking to the Olympic trials in Birmingham in June and hoping he can post the A standard. That would put him up there with the best 1500m runners Scotland has ever produced.”