McConnell says top Scots face burnout

LEE McConnell has claimed that Scotland's top athletes are risking burnout this year due to the heavy demands in their schedule.

The 31-year-old begins her season in Doha tomorrow as part of Great Britain's 400 metres relay squad at the world indoor championships.

The Glasgow-born star, who will bid for her seventh major medal, has skipped most of the indoor season in a bid to conserve her fitness for a twin assault on the European and Commonwealth titles.

However, with the latter Games taking place in October – outside the normal season – McConnell has warned that plans must be put in place ahead of New Delhi to help athletes cope with the extra burden.

"I don't know if they're taking us straight from here to Delhi," she said. "If that's the case, there's no way you can get any decent conditioning done. I don't think you can be quick enough. We have to get away somewhere and it's tricky because there won't be any races as well. There are so many problems. The biggest issue is that it will eat into the winter training for the world championships next year."

Dwain Chambers sent his rivals an early warning that he will be the man to beat in Doha when powering to victory in his 60m heat yesterday.

The reformed drugs cheat showed a clean pair of heels to the rest of the field despite easing down and posted a quickish time of 6.59 seconds.

Former world junior 100m champion Harry Aikines-Aryeetey also made the semi-finals finishing third in his race with a time of 6.72sec.

Earlier Jenny Meadows started her campaign to win the 800m gold medal with an impressive victory in her heat. Meadows posted the fastest time of the qualifying rounds, winning in two minutes, 0.39 seconds.

Andrew Osagie, the shock winner of last month's UK title, again excelled when making today's 800m semi-finals. Osagie posted a personal best of 1min 47.40sec in a race won by Olympic silver-medallist Ahmad Ismail in 1: 46.69.