Athletics: McColgan demonstrates her desire before Games with solid Solihull show

London 2012 steeplechaser Eilish McColgan (Dundee) broke her personal best for 1500 metres by more than a second in finishing fifth in 4:13.31 in the British Milers Club Grand Prix in Solihull on Saturday night.

McColgan, who was disappointed not to go faster in her last outing before joining the British team for pre-Olympic training in Portugal, just beat training partner and former Scottish champion Morag 
MacLarty, whose time of 4:14.34 was a best for her 
injury-interrupted season.

McColgan’s UK steeplechase teammate Barbara Parker also set a personal best of 4:11.52 in third place before going on to run a B race a few minutes later as a training stint. Overlooked Olympic 800m candidate Jemma Simpson, who was beaten by Capital star Lynsey Sharp in the UK 800m trial, moved up a distance to win the A race. just beating Olympic 1500m choice Hannah England in 4:10.07.

Injury victim England (4:10.43) however ran four seconds faster than she did in the London Grand Prix ten days ago and should be fit for the 
Olympics. Scottish 400m champion Guy Learmonth (Lasswade) was fifth in the men’s 800 A race in 1:47.62, his second fastest time of the season.

Another member of Britain’s Olympic team Michael Rimmer won in 1:47.01, more than two seconds slower than GB teammate Andrew Osagie managed in Monaco on Friday night.

Kris Gauson (Edinburgh AC) was fourth in the B race in 1:50.28.

Clubmate Jake Wightman made the most of his trip to the Midlands, cutting his best for the two laps to 1:51.6 
hand-timed, the electronic 
timing apparently having failed to function.

Hayley Haining (Kilbarchan), who was so unlucky not to go to the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the marathon, was an impressive women’s winner of the Musselburgh 10k road race in 35:01 on Saturday and Andrew Douglas (Inverclyde) was an easy winner of the men’s race in 30:18.