Rodger thrilled for World Para Champs quartet

Wednesday 7th June 2017

‘Well done to athletes and their coaches’ – Rodger Harkins (photo by Bobby Gavin)

Four Scottish Para athletes will be heading to London next month for the World Para Athletics Championships 2017.

The news was confirmed as British Athletics announced the names of their selections and those included Jo Butterfield, Maria Lyle, Stef Reid and Sammi Kinghorn.

All four are very highly ranked in global terms and had to achieve that status in order to win selection for London – with Jo, Maria and Stef all having won medals at the Parlaympics last summer and Sammi having recently set World and European Records.

Unfortunately, injury put paid to double Rio gold medallist Libby Clegg‘s hopes of competing this summer, with the event at the London Stadium on July 14-23.

There is no marathon at the World Para Athletic Champs but Fife’s Derek Rae raced at the IPC World Marathon Cup at the London Marathon in April and won bronze in his classification.

Nonetheless, the four selected will be hopefully be very busy indeed in London with the quartet entered for no fewer than 10 events between them with some having heats and finals. In total, there were 49 athletes selected.

Here’s the selected four and their events (with their coach name in brackets):

Jo Butterfield (Phil Peat/Shona Malcolm): F51 club throw and discus

Maria Lyle(Ryan Freckleton): T35 100m, 200m and relay

Stef Reid (Aston Moore): T44 Long Jump

Sammi Kinghorn (Ian Mirfin): T53 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m

‘It is an exciting day for our Para athletes and their families and coaches,’ said Rodger Harkins, Performance Director with scottishathletics.

‘I congratulate all four and wish them all the best in their preparations for London. Being selected for a World Championships event is a huge achievement and only comes about after an awful lot of hard work by athletes and their coaches. I think it will be even more special for them with it being a home Games for the British athletes.

‘All four are very highly ranked globally in various classifications and they have to be to make the selection. We wish them well in their pursuit of medals in this event and we hope to see them in strong contention in their events.

‘Maria is picked for three events and Sammi for four distances, too, so hopefully they have really busy time at the Champs with plenty of races and finals!

‘We feel for Libby Clegg being injured in the countdown to a major event. We wish her a speedy recovery and a return to competition when fully fit.

‘Derek Rae has already had his ‘World Champs’ at the London Marathon and we were delighted for him to earn a bronze medal in his classification there, with a big PB performance on the day in April.’