by Stuart Weir
The Emirates Arena, the hosting site for the Mulller Indoor GP, Glasgow, Scotland, photo by Getty Images/British Athletics
The Emirates Arena hosted the Glasgow Indoor today. Stuart Weir has written four articles and this is the third of the four articles from Mr. Weir. This feature is on the mens’ races in Glasgow. Some fun races on the last meet of the 2018 IAAF World Tour. We thank our friend, Stuart Weir, who covered twenty plus events for us in 2017 for RunBlogRun.
Glasgow men’s programme
The most eagerly awaited event in the men’s programme at the Mὕller Indoor Grand Prix in Glasgow was arguably the 60 metres hurdles. Could the local boy (and 2017 European Indoor Champion), Andy Pozzi, win the race from Aries Merritt, a man with a world record and an Olympic gold medal in his locker? Merritt is immensely popular in the UK because he is such a nice person and because he always says how much he loves competing in the UK, where he won his Olympic gold.
Well Merritt won the duel running 7.58 to Pozzi’s 7.60. However, the problem for both of them was that Ronald Levy (Jamaica) won the race in a stadium record 7.49. When I said to Levy afterwards that he never looked like being caught, he just told me “I am very fast”. He added, “I came out really just to execute. It’s encouraging ahead of the world championships next week that I can deliver a performance like that at big events like this one. I need to improve on everything. I’m just coming back now, so need to improve everything”.45.86
The 60m flat was won by Bingtian Su from Michael Rodgers to give him the IAAF Indoor tour title (with Rodgers second in that as well) Su said, “I really enjoyed the meeting; it is a special moment to win the Tour. Today’s race felt much better than my previous races; I head into the World Indoors confident”.
The 800m series has been a battle between two Poles. In Glasgow, Adam Kszczot won from Marcin Lewandowski 1:47.15 to 1:47.50 and that was also the 1-2 in the Tour Series, leaving Kszzczot $20000 better off.
It was no surprise that Kenyans won the 1500m and 3000m. The 1500m went to Bethwel Birgen in 3:37.76 with fellow countryman, Vincent Kebet, only 12 hundredths of a second behind. Birgen will be invited back to Glasgow, after saying: “Glasgow is like home for me, I have good friends here and I like coming here. It’s my third time competing here. It’s been good for me and I’ve been trying to step up my events and I feel the indoor series have been successful for me”.
Commenting on the bigger picture he said: “That was a good race, I have been concentrating on the 3000m for the last two races but it was a speedy one and is good preparation for Birmingham. I’m feeling well and have been training hard and I am excited to take to the track in Birmingham. I’d be hoping to be out at the front there”.
Justus Soget Kiplagat (Kenya) won the 3000m in 7:39.09, admitting that he not expected to win: “The race was a bit tough but I thank God for giving me the strength to win. Fast times are fast times, I got a personal best I think in Dusseldorf, I ran 7 minutes 43 seconds but today I proved I can go quicker today with 7 minutes 39 seconds. I really enjoyed the crowd they were brilliant and really cheered me on. I’m excited to move into the outdoor season”.
The winner of the 3000m series was Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia while the 1500m was not included.
It was a Chinese one and three in the long jump with Yuhao Shi winning with 8.13, the only athlete to go beyond 8 metres. Damar Forbes (Jamaica) and Changzhou Huang (China) each jumped 7.99 with Forbes being awarded second place. Olympic, World, Commonwealth and European champion at one stage, Greg Rutherford, whose only competition since June 2017 was the GB trials last week, put in a solid performance of 7.89 but the World Indoors may have come too soon for him. He has a wild-card invitation but is unsure whether to accept. He summed up his day’s work: “It was better than it was last week, but it’s not where I want to be. I wanted to go over 8m today, which would’ve solidified my decision to go to world champs, so I have to debrief, figure out if it’s a possibility and go from there.
“I’m a good couple of months behind where I need to be. The two surgeries I had were quite big so I’m glad that within a week I’ve had about 11 jumps which is a lot for me. It’s good for training but equally if I go to a major championship, I go to win or at least win a medal and I’m not sure if that’s a possibility.
Fred Kerley won the 400 in a stadium record. Tom Bosworth set a world record of 10:30.28 in the 3000m walk, a distance that is rare indoors.
