The mile “It’s going to be some final!”
When the organizers scheduled the semi-finals of the men’s mile, it seemed natural to put it in a morning session. However, the presence of three Scottish athletes, all global medallists and one of them, for the last week the world mile record-holder, gave the races more significance.
Josh Kerr won his semi in 3:58.57 from Timothy Cheruiyot. Jake Wightman was second in the other semi in 3:54.05 (behind Cameron Myers of Australia). Neil Gourley was in contention for most of the race but fell away at the end to finish 9th in 4:01.45. Josh Kerr was asked about the track on which he had run a lot in his youth: “It was great. They must have re-laid the track reasonably recently. It’s fast and, with the temporary stands up, it’s a lot less windy than I remember it”.
He said that he had hit the front as it was getting a bit bunched up “to create a bit of space for myself, but not overdo it”, adding “I felt solid enough. It felt a little slower than last week.”
Asked if he felt pressure running in Scotland, he said: “I kind of thrive in a pressure environment. I want as much pressure on me as possible. I’m here to show up and get a gold medal for Scotland, and hopefully we can put more people on the podium than just me. Jake’s run an awesome kilometer, so I’m just happy to be rubbing shoulders with these guys again and going after the big medals.”
Jake Wightman said that he preferred the 1500 as the extra 109 meters did not help him. He also said that in a mile, the first bend seemed to come very quickly.
Commenting on his semi-final, Wightman said: “It was alright. I just wanted to get through in the top six. You can make that as comfortable or as uncomfortable as you want, and there was a point where I felt like we were pretty safe, so it was like, ‘Right, I don’t need to push too much.’ You just have to be careful you go all the way through the line because, if people are making last-minute attempts to come through, you don’t want to be on the wrong side of that.”
A very disappointed Neil Gourley said that he had had a frustrating season but had hoped that he could do enough to make the final.
He said that the atmosphere was great: “Even just doing our strides, the noise from the crowd when they saw Scottish athletes coming past was really cool. It’s going to be some final, isn’t it? It’ll be very good spectacle.”
The final is on Saturday,
