Athletics: Guy Learmonth and relay runs save day

GUY LEARMONTH (Lasswade) and the Edinburgh AC relay teams lightened the gloom of a somewhat depressing and poorly supported Scottish Indoor Athletics Championships at the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow on Saturday.

Learmonth who marked himself out as a possible Glasgow 2014 candidate by winning the Inter-Regional event two weeks previously in a personal best time of 1:51.29, confirmed his promise by capturing the senior 800 metres title at the age of only 17 in 1:52.77.

"I'm happy with that – I've had a virus for the last ten days and haven't trained since Wednesday," said Learmonth. "I was just running to win today but a senior title at 17 is not bad!"

Learmonth will now see if he can step up to another level by contesting the UK Championships and World Indoor Trials at Sheffield next weekend.

There was no record for Dunfermline's Nick Smith but the 27-year-old former New Year Sprint winner took the 60 metres title for an amazing seventh year in a row in 6.71 secs.

Edinburgh AC won a gold, two silvers and a bronze in the Scottish junior relay championships held on the same programme.

The under-17 boys team of Tom Holligan, Alex North, Cameron Goodall and Seamus Thomson romped to a new Scottish record of 1:32.87 in the 4 x 200m

while there were also medals for the under-15 boys and under-16 girls, who were both runners-up, and the under-13 girls who were third.

Ali Strange, a 26-year-old aeronautical engineering student at Loughborough who used to represent Edinburgh AC in the British League, soared into contention for the Scottish Commonwealth Games team for Delhi with a new Scottish National pole vault record of 5.16 metres.