Scottish Athletics interested in Sprint
SANDY SUTHERLAND
December 31 2007
Comment
Could Glasgow host a future New Year Sprint as part of the build-up to the Commonwealth Games in 2014?
The chief executive of Scottish Athletics, Geoff Wightman, who attended the 139th staging of the event, at Musselburgh Racecourse on Saturday, was impressed with the talent on view and has pledged to continue talking to the Scottish Games Association, to which the Sprint is affiliated, about ways of co-operating to the mutual benefit of both bodies.
Developing the Sprint and its supporting events could be one such way. The traditional professional handicap, first held at Powderhall in 1870, has had six other venues in the last half- century, all of them in the East of Scotland, with the exception of 1958 when it went to Hawick.
Generously backed by East Lothian Council and Musselburgh Racecourse for the last decade, the event needs a better track than the long grass strip currently on offer at the side of the racecourse and Pitreavie and Grangemouth have been mentioned as alternative venues.
But that decision rests with the promoter, Frank Hanlon, who had high hopes, now dashed, that an all-weather surface would be laid at Musselburgh.
“The track was very soft,” Hanlon readily conceded after 16-year-old Craig Robertson, a pupil at Galashiels Academy, powered to victory on Saturday in a triumph for Innerleithen coach Charlie Russell.
Following the success of another Craig Robertson, the 21-year-old Logierait farmer, in the 1600 metres handicap on the first day, the younger of the two, a 7-1 outsider, emerged from the relative obscurity of youths races in the Border Games to win the £4000 first prize at his first attempt.
David Rae, 33, of Hawick, was runner-up and another 16-year-old, Annan Academy pupil Josh Crawford, was third.
Robertson, a scrum-half with Gala Wanderers semi-juniors, only took up sprinting to help his rugby fitness and was at a loss for words: “This was my first ever event as a senior,” he admitted.
He covered the 110 metres in 12.00sec. from his start of 9.5 metres, with Rae, the fastest heat qualifier on Friday, second in 12.03, from 8.5 metres, and down on his heat form.
