Laura Muir won 1500m gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games
Laura Muir won 1500m gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games
Scotland’s Laura Muir will run the 5,000m at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow as she aims to be “as strong as possible” for the major events up to the 2028 Olympics.
The 33-year-old won 1500m gold for Scotland at the 2022 Games in Birmingham, but that event is not on the schedule at Scotstoun Stadium this summer.
But rather than compete in the mile, the closest to the 1500m and event for which she holds the British record, Muir is going up in distance.
“Doing the 5k hopefully makes my endurance that a little bit stronger and hopefully help that 1500m,” she told BBC Scotland.
“[The]1500m is getting tougher and tougher, the event is getting so strong now so I just want to try and be as strong as possible for these next two years.
“We’ve got the world championships next year, Olympic Games in 2028 so this is all part of the bigger picture, a little bit of an experiment year to see how things go.”
Gourley would ‘crawl’ track to star in home Games
Muir was beaten in the 1500m at the British Championships last week by fellow Scot Sarah Calvert, who also makes the Scotland team for her first Commonwealth Games.
The 24-year-old Livingston AC runner is among a 39-strong track and field team for next month’s home competition named by Team Scotland.
It also includes Olympic silver medallist Josh Kerr, former world champion Jake Wightman, who claimed the British 800m title last week, and defending Commonwealth 10,000m champion Eilish McColgan.
Paralympic champion and world record holder Ben Sandilands leads the contingent of para-athletes for the Games.
