On the track on which he claimed a victory during last month’s Muller Anniversary Games Chris O’Hare put in another composed performance last night to claim his place in the semi-finals of the 1500 metres.
The man who also won the British title last month, ran a near perfect tactical race, working his way into third place on the penultimate lap, outside Kenya’s Ronald Kwemoi and Spain’s Marc Alcala, ensuring that he was on the pace and that anyone trying to spring an attack was going to have to go the long way around him.
He moved up onto Kwemoi’s shoulder as the bell was rung, upped the pace to take the lead with 200 metres to go and having stretched them out he spent most of the home straight looking over his shoulder and consequently managing to keep clear of the bother behind him as Dutchman Richard Douma took a tumble on the run in.
Read more: Consistency not enough for captain Eilidh Doyle in 400m hurdles final
The 26-year-old is maturing into his role as a senior figure within the squad, particularly among the 1500 metres runners and said fatherhood has helped him in that process.
“Truthfully, having my son Ronan and my wife at home is more of a motivation than I’ve ever had before, it’s so easy to get up in the morning and put in the work and go to bed exhausted even though you know you’ll be up again in a couple of hours, but just having them has been huge for me and I can’t thank them enough,” he said.
Not that mellowing off the track has dulled his competitive edge.
“To be fair I got a bit excited tonight. With 400m to go I thought, ‘This is slow.’ Then the Kenyan boy did a good job of keeping me out so I had to go by him,” O’Hare added.
It was the second event of the night that had seen all-Scottish representation for the home team and family matters were also at play for Jake Wightman whose father Geoff was commentating on his efforts as the stadium announcer. A Diamond League winner in Oslo earlier this month, he put in a similarly astute performance as he stayed with the leaders all the way around and holding off Timothy Cheruiyot, the Kenyan who was the fastest man in the field, until the 200 metre mark when the pace picked up. While it was a busier finish for Wightman than O’Hare, he never looked in any danger of missing out on the top six finish that guaranteed qualification for the semi-finals and he ultimately finished in fourth spot.
Read more: Consistency not enough for captain Eilidh Doyle in 400m hurdles final
For teenager Josh Kerr, like his compatriots a product of Edinburgh Athletics Club who has made a huge impact in American college athletics since heading to university New Mexico, winning both the indoor mile and the outdoors 1500 metre competition in NCAA competition this year, these championships were always going to be about finding out what it was all about at the highest level and he got that opportunity when drawn in the first and toughest of the heats.
Such was the pace that Asbel Kiprop, the Kenyan who has won this event at the last three World Championships and was the Olympic champion way back in 2008, had to settle for third spot in a furious finish which left the young Scot straining to keep up.
“I thought I would come up but it’s just not that easy, I just thought it would be a lot more simple than it was,” he admitted afterwards. “Normally I can come strong on the home straight but against these guys running 3:45 it’s not going to be that easy coming down the home straight that far back. I was ready, everything was there, but it just didn’t happen for me today.”
While he was entitled to take some satisfaction from having earned his place on the team he also showed commendable ambition looking forward.
“Qualifying was huge but qualifying isn’t good enough, it’s not what I want to do,” he said.
“I don’t want to just come here for the experience I want to come here and just go for it and smash it.”
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