WEEKEND UPDATE ONE: BRILLIANT GIBSON SECURES COMMONWEALTH QUALIFYING TIME WITH VICTORY IN OSLO - SCOTLAND'S NO. 22

3rd July 2009

Claire Gibson (Kilbarchan AAC) won tonight's ExxonMobil Bislett Games 800m (Friday 3rd July) in Oslo in an impressive 2:01.42 - a brilliant lifetime best and her first Commonwealth Games qualifying mark (2:01.80).

Gibson took the race on, front-running to victory to eclipse the Scottish standard for next year's Games in Delhi by 0.38sec.

With the early evening temperature hovering at around 30 degrees, the Scottish champion motored through the first lap in 60.27s to win ahead of Ingvill Bovim of Norway (2:02.54)and Kenya's Nelly Jepkosgei (2:07.37).

Had her rivals pushed her harder, Gibson may have possibly achieved the qualifier for next month's World Championships in Berlin (2:00.00) - she'll now be aiming to do that at next weekend's Aviva World Trials and UK Championships in Birmingham where a star-studded field is expected to produce a very fast race.

Also looking forward to the Trials will be Liz McColgan-coached Colin McCourt (Dundee Hawkhill Harriers) who raced to a brilliant PB over 1500m in Oslo, clocking 3:37.55 to finish fifth - well inside the UKA 'B' standard (3:39.20) for the IAAF World Championships in August.

For full results follow the link to the event website.