Gillian Cooke is real danger to Simpson's runners

Martyn Paterson (Clackmannan) could give himself an 18th birthday present to remember today by winning his heat of the 142nd New Year Professional Sprint at Musselburgh Racecourse.

A second-year accountancy student at Stirling University who runs for Central AC, Paterson has a best of only 11.40 seconds for 100 metres but has run a promising 49.40 for 400 metres and 22.39sec for 200m "with a wind up his backside".

No wonder his Kirkcaldy-based coach Eric Simpson, who retired as the last head teacher at the former Piershill Special School in Edinburgh, believes he will not just be making up the numbers in heat one, where he has a start of 6.5m for the 110m race.

"They'll have to go some to beat him," promised Simpson, who is also now coaching the former Scottish 200m champion and current high hurdles champion Francis Smith (Dunfermline), who goes in heat two off 5.25m.

"They both have a great chance of making the final, in fact Francis could even be the dark horse," added Simpson, who revealed that his squad had been saved during the severe weather by being able to train at 'The Avenue' in Beveridge Park in Kirkcaldy when snow forced them off their usual facilities at Pitreavie.

Like Paterson a rookie as far as the New Year Sprint is concerned, Simpson has a wealth of coaching experience, going back over 30 years to names such as Bruce Livingstone and Shona Urquhart but he is usually associated more with middle-distance athletes. Paterson apart - and much will depend how he performs in today's heats and, if successful, tomorrow's cross-ties - the favourite for the 4000 top prize in tomorrow's final will probably be the 2009 World bobsleigh champion and former British international long jumper Gillian Cooke (Edinburgh), who is off 16.5m in heat six.

Cooke, a former East District indoor 60 metres champion in a pretty nifty time, has a best of 11.99sec for 100m and must have an excellent chance of becoming the first woman to win the historic handicap - if she is not in too much pain from the still troublesome hip injury she sustained in a crash at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver ten months ago.

Her coach, John Scott, pointed out: "Gillian's only got less than 94 metres to run and if she can run anywhere near her best it's going to be hard for the backmarkers to catch her."