All set for Senior and U17 Champs !

Wednesday 25th January 2017

Medals up for grabs at the Emirates – photo by Sue Gyford

The Emirates Arena will once again be the focus of attention for the track and field community come Saturday – for the Scottish Senior and U17 Champs.

And there should be plenty of excitement in store with close to 600 names on start-lists likely to mean heats and then finals in many events.

For our very best athletes, of course, there is the opportunity to post a Commonwealth Games qualifying standard ahead of Gold Coast 2018 with the Senior Champs event fulfilling the Level 3 Meet requirements of the Team Scotland policy.

Adding to the occasion is the fact that the Senior Indoors is also only the second event in the Team Scotland Series, a collaboration between a number of sports seeking to raise the profile of National Championship events.

Gold Coast 2018 selection policy launched

Team Scotland Series

Alisha Rees (blue vest) was in good form at the National Open with a 60m PB

To that end, it is great to see a number of athletes who represented Scotland at Glasgow 2014 among those on the start-lists including the likes of Greg Louden, Grant Plenderleith, Jamie Bowie, Emily Dudgeon, David Smith, Jax Thoirs, Rachel Hunter, Zoey Clark, Jade Nimmo and Emma Nuttall.

There start-lists also include a handful of age group GB internationals like Cameron Tindle, Ben Greenwood, Alisha Rees, Mhairi Hendry, Erin Wallace, Jill Cherry and Kelsey Stewart as well as Scotland internationals from Loughborough in recent years, with the hope being this helps raise the bar in terms of performance.

Throw in a number of last year’s Senior Indoor medallists and current National Academy athletes and we should have strong competition in a number of the events with final slots and podium places coveted.

Similarly, there should be strong competition at U17 level, as always. One of the motivations of merging the two championships is to let U17s see close-up the Senior Champs and have an idea of the step-up which may be required.

Start-lists are on our Events section page. Those lists will become Live Results on Saturday, once the action has started – with the first event being at 10am and the last at around 5.30pm.

Once again we would like to thank in advance all our hard-working scottishathletics Officials during a busy Indoor Season. After Saturday’s event, it is straight on into the Scottish Schools and the SUPERteams, followed thereafter by the Age Group Champs.

Scottish Athletics National Indoors 2017 January 14th 2017 (C)Bobby Gavin Byline must be used

Jax Thoirs in action at the National Open – cleared 5.31m in Manchester last weekend

scottishathletics President, Leslie Roy, will be on duty on Saturday in an announcer’s role and believes there is plenty to look forward to at the Emirates Arena.

‘I think we are in for a fantastic day of athletics, with an opportunity for athletes to post a Commonwealth Games qualifying standard and indeed for our younger athletes a Commonwealth Youth Games qualifying standard,’ said Leslie.

‘Although 2017 is only a few weeks old, we have already experienced some top performances at the Emirates Arena with Laura Muir, coached by Andy Young, breaking the British 5000m record just after New Year and then the scottishathletics National Open producing a number of highlights and many PBs.

‘Let me extend our thanks to Glasgow Life, Sports Council for Glasgow, the staff at the Emirates Arena and the scottishathletics officials technical team for their help and support in preparing the facility for this event.

‘All of our officials give up so much of their time and work tirelessly to ensure that these track and field Indoor Championships are a success. It is much appreciated.’