Athletics: Muir can’t stop winning

Laura Muir confirmed her status as one of the emergent talents in Scottish athletics over the weekend as she made it four national title wins inside a fortnight.

And all four have come at different distances with the 18-year-old proving adept at everything from cross country to a 400-metre sprint.

The Dundee Hawkhill athlete, a student at Glasgow University, doubled-up at the scottishathletics age group championships at Kelvin Hall on Saturday to win both the Under-20 400 metres and Under-20 1500 metres titles.

That came just two weeks after her success at Falkirk in the Under-20 cross country championships. The following day, Laura won the Senior Women’s 800 metres title at Kelvin Hall and broke a Scottish Junior record set 30 years ago by Linsey Macdonald.

Muir’s purple patch has come in a three-month period since being called up by Great Britain for the European Cross Country Championships in Slovenia.

Her display on Saturday was just one highlight with three Glasgow boys shooting into the top five of the current season UK rankings for Under-17s at long jump, pole vault and 200 metres.

Long jumper Ross Maxwell leapt 6m 83 to go straight to No 1 in the UK list, having won bronze at the England age-group championships the week before.

Fraser O’Rourke cleared 4m 20 in the pole vault and is now No 2 in Britain in his age-group while John McCall’s 22.42 seconds PB in the 200 metres took him to No 5 across the UK. There were also double golds for Nikki Manson and Mhairi Patience and a PB for high jumper Sean Gaffney.

Elsewhere, Jax Thoirs set a new Scottish Junior record for pole vault at the McCain City Challenge event in London, clearing 5m 11. In Loughborough, senior athlete Mark Dry threw 73m 36 in the hammer for a PB, leaving him second in the all-time Scottish rankings behind Chris Black.