Sammi marathon debut; George Cummings Relays; Inglis; Houston

Monday 9th October 2017

Sammi at the Great Scottish Run – photo by Bobby Gavin

BBC Scotland report

Scotland’s Sammi Kinghorn continued her amazing 2017 with a superb debut at the distance in the wheelchair race at the Chicago Marathon.

Kinghorn, Double World champion at 100m and 200m during the summer, finished in fifth place in 1.43.52 and that’s well inside the standard required for the Commonwealth Games.

It was a Scottish Record for wheelchair racing for the marathon. Sammi had been nursing a wrist injury in recent weeks following the Great North Run but recovered in time to finish second at the Great Scottish Run wheelchair race to set her up for the trip to the United States.

Yesterday, after her first gruelling experience of the 26.2 miles distance, she tweeted: ‘Marathon debut completed in a time I didn’t think possible and couldn’t do it without my coach, Ian Mirfin’.

Last month, the 21-year-old from the Borders was named Scottish Sportsperson of the year at the Team Scotland Scottish Sports Awards and Sammi has also been short-listed for our own FPSG Annual Awards on Saturday 4 November.

The Chicago Marathon performance will secure Sammi a slot for the Gold Coast 2018 and she already looks like a medal contender at Commonwealth level for that event, while also being expected to compete on the track in Australia over 1500m.

Many congratulations to athlete and coach from all at scottishathletics . . .

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The George Cummings Relays hosted by Kilbarchan AAC in Houston is always a popular event and the 2017 edition certainly felt like a gathering of many in the Scottish endurance community.

And what a fine success unfolded for  Giffnock North AAC  in a competitive men’s race, as Kilbarchan women savoured a victory in their race as the host club.

Giffnock’s Luke Traynor  led the charge in terms of individual times as he came up with a 12.15 fastest lap for the course of roughly 2.7 miles, with Callum Hawkins at 12.20. Luke in fact was within seven seconds of Callum’s course record for this race.

Giffnock’s quartet of Niall Fraser, Traynor, Andrew Clark and Andrew Bonner won it from Inverclyde AAC and Corstorphine AAC, with Bonner having to hold off Inverclyde in the final stages and likewise Corstorphine to take third from Cambuslang.

Kilbarchan AAC women were helped by a fastest lap by Elspeth Curran at 14.51 with Chloe Simpson and Jennifer Rooney making up the team. Garscube were second and Cambuslang were third.

This is a good race for U17 and U20 athletes to step up into Senior level competition and there were a number of fine performances by younger athletes.

East Kilbride AC, for their part, are justifiably proud of their quartet of Aidan Gilbride, Martin Lynas, John Fergusson and Jamie Clements for coming up with their best time since 2010 (by four minutes) with a team who all first raced together  when at U13 level.

Results

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Sarah Inglis came up with another fine performance in Canada to add to her recent successes in road running.

The National XC bronze medallist won the Victoria BC Half Marathon in Vancouver with a PB run of 74.21 which betters her previous best by 30 seconds, set earlier in the year in Portugal.

Inglis now tops the Scottish half marathon women’s rankings for 2017 and has moved into the top 10 in the British rankings.

More details online

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Good to see Ross Houston back in road action at the weekend – and on the top of the podium.

The GB and NI ultra international and Central AC stalwart won the Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon in a time of 2.24.13. It was the first marathon run for Ross for a number of years after representing Scotland at that distance at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

More details on Athletics Weekly site

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Results from a couple of local events around Scotland on Sunday – with the CCW Linlithgow 10K and the Neil McCover Half Marathon taking place at Kirkintilloch.

Linlithgow 10K

Neil McCover Half Marathon prize-winners:

Tags: George Cummings Road Relays, Giffnock North AAC, Gold Coast 2018, Ian Mirfin, Kilbarchan AAC, Luke Traynor, Sammi Kinghorn, Sarah Inglis