SCOTTISH titles will be at stake at Meadowbank again this weekend when the former District Championships, now the Scottish Closed Championships, take place tomorrow and Sunday.
Capital star Gillian Cooke (Edinburgh AC) will use the occasion to fine-tune her run-up for her first major outing in the long jump.
"If she reproduces her training form then we could be looking at something spectacular," says her coach John Scott
, who has already seen one of his other athletes, Edinburgh medical student Nony Mordi, do just that in Bedford earlier this week.
The Fife AC triple jumper posted the second longest effort in Europe so far this season in winning the British Universities' title with a slightly wind-assisted leap of 13.62 metres and she also smashed Gillian Kerr's Scottish national record with one of her other efforts, a legal 13.49m.
Mordi has third-year exams soon so may make a last-minute decision on competing: "It may depend on the weather," says Scott.
Jayne Nisbet (EAC) was another in early-season form at Bedford where she won the high jump with 1.80m, and had a close try at 1.83m, and placed third in the triple with 12.82m.
She will again be in action in both events. Club-mate Kirsty Maguire will have to travel to Grangemouth Stadium tomorrow to defend her pole vault title as new landing beds have not arrived in time at Meadowbank.
Pitreavie men will be making their usual strong title challenge with Graham Oudney bidding for the 400m tomorrow and Francis Smith going in the 400m hurdles, boosted by his fast run over 200m hurdles in mid-week at a Grangemouth Open graded meeting.
Smith, running into a slight headwind, clocked 24.12 seconds and just missed the Scottish record.
Scott Hughson (EAC), who ran so well indoors earlier this year, has been suffering from a hamstring muscle injury and is a doubtful starter in the 400m, but another of coach Dave Campbell's athletes Doug Selman (Corstorphine) runs the 800m on Sunday, while Chris O'Hare (EAC), who had such a fine cross country season, makes his debut over 5000m
The full article contains 368 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
