HAD Eilish McColgan run the way she did in the 1500m final at the Carrara Stadium last night during Glasgow 2014, it would have earned her a gold medal and a Commonwealth record. As it was, all her time of 4.04.30 was good enough for last night was sixth place behind an athlete in Caster Semenya who might not win many popularity contests amongst her fellow athletes but sure knows how to rack up the medals. The scale of the task facing female middle distance runners the world over right now was summed up by the fact that the controversial South African took four seconds off Hellen Obiri’s Glasgow winning time, apparently without breaking sweat.
The race was delayed for ten minutes while stadium management tried to repair the starting mechanism after a downpour. McColgan appeared to be caught cold a little, but a gutsy, tactical race soon put her just about where she needed to be at crunch time. The strength she needed in the final straight deserted her, however, with her fellow Scot Steph Twell running a season’s best to finish only one place further back by the end. Early leader Beatrice Chepkoech of Kenya took second with Melissa Courtney of Wales in bronze.
“I’m just a little bit gutted because I was there with 200 to go and I just sort of faded that last little bit,” said McColgan. “I knew there was a medal up for grabs today – and I knew that one of the British girls was going to win it. I just had a feeling. I knew that Semenya would be up there but that one of us would sneak a medal. And, with 200 to go, I thought it was going to be me.”
Eilidh Doyle, meanwhile, had the measure of everyone else in her 400m hurdles semi-final – with a little bit of help from her own personal measuring tape. Running for the first time competitively in her preferred event, the 31 year-old put nerves behind her to qualify third fastest for tomorrow’s final behind Janieve Russell of Jamaica and Wenda Nel of South Africa as she aims to repeat – or go one better – than her silver medal in Glasgow four years ago. Part of the secret was some obsessive measuring of her blocks.
“They say you will get one out there but I don’t trust anybody’s except my own,” said the Team Scotland flagbearer. “I like to have my blocks accurate, I can do it with my feet but I prefer to know exactly what it is. It is a little bit OCD of me!”
There was no such luck for Clark, whose misfortune it was to run her 400m semi-final amid a biblical rain storm which cleared up shortly afterwards. Finishing fourth in the first heat in a time of 52.06 wasn’t good enough to be a fastest loser. “Isle of Man in the Commonwealth Youth Games was worse, it was awful!” Clark said. “Wind, rain, cold, at least it is warm here! For me, the hardest thing was being able to see, because the rain was getting in my eyes because it was coming down so fast.”
Sammi Kinghorn finished fourth in the T54 1500m, being squeezed out by home favourites Madison de Rozario and Angela Ballard, with Canada’s Diana Row taking third. “I was ranked fifth going in, so fourth is an improvement,” she said. “I think the Aussie girls had a plan.”
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