Published: Wednesday, 21st July, 2010 11:04am

Central athletes win triple gold at Scottish seniors

Comments (0) | Print | Email

Morag MacLarty pulls away on the final bend of the 1500m from Glasgow's Ashley McGhee and Edinburgh's Nicola Gauld.

Central's senior athletes struck triple gold at the senior Scottish Senior Championships at Dunfermline in weather conditions that put paid to fast times.

Alistair Hay won the 1500m, controlling the race from the front and holding off any challengers before pulling away to win in 3.57.44.

Andrew Butchart in his first senior championships also qualified through to the final in fine style, finishing in 9th place.

In the Women's 1500m, Morag MacLarty was similarly the runner that all the others feared and once she kicked into gear on the back straight of the final lap, everyone else was just playing catch up as she won in 4.20.63. Fiona Thompson was pleased with a personal best in 4.33.46 as she ran to sixth place.

The women's steeplechase saw Emma Raven taking on Scottish record holder Lennie Waite over from the USA for the summer, and with a remarkable run, she broke away with 600 metres to record a new Scottish native record of 10:13.81 as the fastest time ever by a Scot in Scotland. She followed it the next day with 17.16.26 timing and a silver medal in the 5000m final.

Scott McDonald also produced a fine run to take a silver medal in the 5000m in a high quality field, recording 14.50.75.

Kyle Henderson, produced a huge jump of 7.22m, some half a metre up on his previous best and demonstrating the strength of the tail wind for fourth place, though the wind did not help his high jump where he managed eighth with 1.85m.

The event also featured the junior sprint relay championships, where two central under-13 teams proceeded to the final from strong runs in their heats. The girls' quartet of Amy Gullen, Isla Burns, Sophie Parsons and Bevhan Trevis took second in the heat, but in the final were disappointed to be just outside the medals with a fourth place.

It was a similar story for the boys, as Cameron Wilson, Callum Presland, Iain Davies and Cameron McCorgray won their heat but had to settle for the next place after the medals in their final.

At Glasgow, three Central athletes represented Scottish Schools as they played host to the annual school's international. Tom Watson was third in a blanket finish in a tight 800m, recording 2.00.65. Louise Anderson performed well in the triple jump to achieve a new personal best of 11.58m as she took fourth place in the triple jump and 13- year- old Kathryn Gillespie mixed it with senior age girls as she raced to a remarkable 2.16.85 also for fourth place.