Sinclair ultra hat-trick; World Long; Celtic Games; Carr

Monday 7th August 2017

Rob Sinclair and Eoin Lennon in action (photo courtesy of Monument Photos)

After a winning and setting course records at this year’s Highland Fling (53 miles) and West Highland Way Race (95), Rob Sinclair was favourite to take the win at Saturday’s Devil o’ the Highlands (42 miles).

As the Scottish Ultra Trail Champs, this year’s Devil o’ the Highlands saw some of Scotland’s finest ultra-distance runners racing from Tyndrum over the West Highland Way to Fort William. Now in it’s 15th year, it’s the second oldest ultra-race in Scotland and one of the most scenic in the UK.

Sinclair lead from the gun, with Eoin Lennon (Carnethy) hot on his heels. The pair arrived in Glencoe (19 miles) in a blistering pace, just under two hours.

Lennon is the Glencoe Marathon record holder, so the course plays to his strengths. They were neck-and-neck through Kinlochleven, before Sinclair broke away and continued building the gap to finish in 5:12:21, thus breaking the previous course record of 5:13:42, held by Casey Morgan.

Lennon took silver in 5:31:15 and Donald McPartlin (Garscube) completed the podium in 5:40:39.

In the ladies’ race, Nicola Adams-Hendry (Garscube Harriers) lined up for her fourth consecutive year.
With two wins and a second under her belt, she is experienced enough to manage the distance.

With a conservative start, Adams-Hendry was 9th female at Bridge of Orchy (7 miles) and slowly picked her way through the field to take the win and set a new PB in 6:28:16.

Second was Fiona Ramsay (Glenpark) in 6:56:20 and third were Northern Irish sisters Angela and Kelly-Anne Speight in 7:01:08, who ran the whole race together. The Scottish Champs podium consisted of Adam-Hendry, Ramsay and Angela Reid (North Ayrshire).

With thanks to Debbie Martin-Consani

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There was a fine performance by Charlotte Morgan of Carnethy as she represented British Athletics at the World Long Distance Mountain Running Champs.

Italy was the venue for the event and Charlotte came home in seventh place in the Senior Women’s race.

Tom Owens of Shettleston Harriers battled hard for his 16th place on a tough course but unfortunately Murray Strain of HBT was to be a DNF after being forced to call a halt through injury.

With thanks to Malcolm Patterson

Kirsty Costello on the podium in Dublin

Photos on Facebook by Jim Mailer

Scotland teams were in Dublin over the weekend for the annual youth international match at U18 and U16 level – the Celtic Games.

And while this year there were no trophies coming back across the water from Irleand, there were a number of good performances by our young ahtletes including nine PBs.

The highlights were a Scottish U15 Record in the hammer for Kirsty Costello of Kilbarchan with 57.83m and a Celtic Games record for Aberdeen AAC athlete, Naomi Lang.

Costello bettered her U15 record of 54.90 (and her pending 55.92) in throwing the 2nd best all-time by a GB U15, just 18cm less than the GB best.  Lang, who represented Scotland at the Commonwealth Youth Games in the Bahamas recently, clocked 9.49.49 to win the 3000m.

Hosts Ireland won the event and Results are available via the Athletics Ireland website report.

With thanks to Leslie Roy

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Amy Carr at the IPC World Juniors in Switzerland

Young Scottish Para athlete Amy Carr came up with a superb performance at the IPC World Juniors in Switzerland.

It started with Carr being named as Women’s captain for the GB and NI team and carrying the flag at the opening ceremony.

Amy quickly followed that up with gold on the first day in the T35-38 200m and then added the U20 long jump gold in the T35-38 class with a new PB of 3.97m.

Finally, concluding her competition, Amy won 100m bronze in U20 T35-38 100m in 14.98 and thus finished with three medals – two golds and a bronze!

Well done to Amy and her family and coach from all at scottishathletics.

With thanks to Ian Mirfin

Tags: Amy Carr, Celtic Games, Devil o' the Highlands, IPC World Juniors, Kirsty Costello, Naomi Lang, Rob Sinclair