Athletics: Freya Murray is left gutted after her other Achilles flares up

Sidelined for three months with Achilles' tendon trouble just before retaining her Scottish title at Falkirk last month, Murray has now picked up a new injury.

"I'm gutted - I've had a bit of bother with my other Achilles' tendon since last Friday and after seeing a physio I've decided not to race on Saturday," sad Murray. The 27-year-old Newcastle-based engineer took the Scottish title for the fifth time in six years at Falkirk and in her best form would have been highly likely to capture one of the six places in the British team for Punat Umbria, southern Spain on March 20.

Another Scottish champion Ross Matheson (Lasswade) should be to the fore in the under-20 race where there are also World places at stake.

Meanwhile, Capital heroes Emma Nuttall, Tom Holligan and Ben Robbins (all Edinburgh AC) should all be in action in this weekend's Bank of Scotland National Junior Championships at the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow.

New national senior high jump champion Nuttall has heard that her close English teenage rival Emma Pooley improved to 1.86 metres last Sunday, the day after Nuttall had equalled the Scottish Native record of 1.83m at the Kelvin Hall; so she will be doubly keen to push the record up tomorrow, even though she will not have clubmate Jayne Nisbet to push her this time.

Bronze medallist Caitlin O'Neill (EAC) who went over 1.70m recently, should again be in the medals.

Holligan, still only 16, captured the Scottish senior 200 metres title last Sunday the same day as Robbins took the Scottish Indoor Under-15 400m record from him at the AAA Junior event in Birmingham where he won in 51.36 secs.

Prolific record-breaker Guy Learmonth (Lasswade) was another to star in Birmingham last Sunday with a meeting best of 1:49.11 in the 800m, and he still hankers after one-time Gateshead hero David Sharpe's British junior record of 1:48.53, which he only just missed by 0.05 seconds at Sheffield two weeks ago.