IN a tremendous 11th-hour performance, Capital hurdler Allan Scott clocked the Olympic A qualifying standard with a time of 13.53 seconds in his heat in the Loughborough European Athletics Permit meeting (LEAP) at Loughborough yesterday.
That was just 0.02sec inside the A standard of 13.55sec which has eluded him all season and should be enough to guarantee that he joins 400 metres star Lee McConnell and possibly Glasgow 1500m runner Susan Scott in Team GB for Beijing.
Scott went
on to win the final in 13.41sec, the fastest time ever recorded by a Scottish athlete for 110m hurdles but, unluckily, this time the following wind was 2.2 metres per second, just over the legal limit for records (+2.0m/s).
In his heat, the following wind had been a mere +0.9 m/s.
"I'm absolutely delighted for him – we've known he's been capable of it for some time and he just had to relax and go out and do it," said Scott's coach Stuart Hogg, who also guides Beijing-bound Irish sprinter Paul Hession.
Scott, who had four B standard performances to his credit, finished second in the official trial in Birmingham last Saturday behind England's Andy Turner who has already been named in Team GB. Yesterday, though, he defeated a useful field which included two Canadians and England's Will Sharman.
Scottish record-holder and 2006 Commonwealth Games silver medallist Chris Baillie, a former training partner of Scott, chose to run in Liege on Wednesday night but could manage only a modest 14.04sec.
Another Scot still chasing an Olympic team place is Fifer Andrew Lemoncello, who runs in the steeplechase in tonight's Golden League meeting at the Stade de France in Paris.
Lemoncello managed only third place in last Sunday's British trial but does have the fastest time of the British candidates for Beijing.
The full article contains 319 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
