THERE’S nothing quite like getting the monkey off your back to release some pressure.
By winning Olympic silver last summer, Laura Muir has ensured she heads into the World Athletics Championships, which begin in Eugene, Oregon on Friday, free from the burden of chasing that first global medal that, until Tokyo last summer, had eluded her for so long.
When Muir takes to the track on day one of the World Championships, there is no longer that uneasiness that she is destined to be the athlete who was the perennial nearly-woman.
It has long been evident that Muir had the talent to compete with the very best 1500m runners in the world; Tokyo proved she had what it takes to defeat almost all of them on the biggest stage.
Beaten only by Faith Kipyegon in Tokyo, Muir will once again face the Kenyan, who the Scot has branded the greatest women’s 1500m runner ever, in Eugene.
The 29-year-old Milnathort native has, however, been talking a good game so far this season, stating that she has her sights set on her first global title.
Muir’s fellow 1500m runners promise to make the men’s event truly thrilling from a Scottish perspective.
The trio of Jake Wightman, Neil Gourley and Josh Kerr occupy the three available spots in the GB team and all are capable of not only reaching the final but contending for medals.
Kerr has already proven he can compete with the big boys by winning Olympic bronze last summer while Wightman’s first British 1500m title last month suggests he is in the form needed to improve on his tenth place in the Olympic final in Tokyo.
And Gourley has something of a point to prove having been dropped by his sponsor and written off by those in charge at UK Athletics. His immediate riposte was to finish second at the British Championships and gain automatic selection for these World Championships but the doubt around his ability will inevitably add fuel to the fire when he takes to the track next weekend.
However, all three will have to pull something special out if they are to finish ahead of the phenomenon that is Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
Still only 21 years old, the Norwegian Olympic champion is proving himself to be one of the sport’s greats and having run the world’s fastest mile in 21 years last month, shows no sign of his progress slowing down.
Yet another medal hope is Muir’s training partner, Jemma Reekie, who lines up in the 800m.
In finishing fourth in Tokyo last summer, the 26-year-old was less than 0.1 seconds from a medal but she has been somewhat overshadowed since those Olympic Games by her GB teammate, Keely Hodginkson, who won silver in Tokyo and is heavily tipped to win yet another medal in Eugene.
Eilish McColgan may have been around for some time – these World Championships come nine years after her debut in the event in 2013 – but the 31-year-old has been in the form of her life in recent months.
In May, she set a British and European 10k record before breaking her mum’s Scottish 10,000m record on the track last month.
In Eugene, she will double up, running both the 5000m and 10,000m which, incidentally, deprived her fellow Scot Sarah Inglis of a place in the 5000m.
In the men’s 5000m, Andy Butchart will make his third World Championships appearance despite having had a less than ideal build-up.
A stress fracture in his leg means he is severely lacking in races this year and was only back running six weeks before the British Championships.
However, the 30-year-old is someone who always backs himself to perform on the big stage.
In the sprints, Beth Dobbin continues her consistency when it comes to making GB teams having been selected for both the 200m and the sprint relay while Nicole Yeargin will run the 400m, as well as being included in the 4x400m relay and 4x400m mixed relay squads. Zoey Clark joins Yeargin in the 4x400m relay squad.
On the field, discus thrower Nick Percy was selected off the back of winning the British title with a new Scottish record, breaking his own mark last month.
Elsewhere in the GB team, all eyes will be on Dina Asher-Smith and Katarina Johnson-Thomson, both of whom are defending world titles in Eugene.
Asher-Smith won an historic three medals in 2019, including 200m gold, while Johnson-Thomson won the heptathlon title two years ago.
From a global perspective, Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah, the Olympic 100m and 200m champion, is looking to cement her status as the best sprinter in the world while the men’s 100m is impossible to call, with US stars Christian Coleman, Trayvon Bromell, Noah Lyles and Fred Kerley taking to their marks alongside Canada’s Andre De Grasse, the Olympic 200m champion.
Pole vaulter Armand Duplantis remains the biggest draw in the field events, with the Swede invariably threatening his own world record every time he takes to the runway.
