Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Laura Muir into 1500m semi-final after strong performance in heats

Scotland’s Laura Muir is safely into the semi-final of the 1500m after finishing second in her heat earlier on Monday.

Laura Muir participates in heat one of the 1500m at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

The Inverness-born runner completed the distance in 4mins 3.89secs, with Canada’s Gabriela DeBues-Stafford finishing first in 4mins 3.70secs.

Muir, 28, said that she was conserving energy for the final, and goes again in the semi-final on Wednesday, August 4 at 11.12am BST.

"You don’t want to have any disrespect for any of the other girls out there, but I want to save as much as I can for the final,” Muir confirmed afterwards.

"It has gone as smooth as it could be - I've been out in Japan for a couple of weeks now, so feeling really prepared and it's really good.

"It didn't feel that fast; I just wanted to qualify for the next round as comfortably as possible. So that felt really good out there today and I am looking forward to the semi-final."

Muir’s finished seventh in the 1500m final at the 2016 Olympics in Rio in a time of 4:12.88 after finishing third in the semi-final.

Prior to the 2020 Games she finished first in the 1500m at the British Grand Prix meeting in Gateshead, with a time of 4:03.73.

European champion Muir will be joined in the semi-final by Team GB colleague Katie Snowden, who finished in 4:02.77 but Revee Walcott-Nolan finished seventh and didn’t advance.

Elsewhere, GB’s Nick Miller reached the hammer final while Muir’s compatriot Deborah Kerr qualified for the women's kayak single 200m semi-finals.

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