Megan Keith will be full of confidence when she goes into the final of the women’s 3,000m at the European under-20 track and field championships in Tallinn tomorrow.
The Inverness Harriers athlete, who earned her place on the team for Estonia by winning the British title last month, overcame scorching conditions last night to safely navigate her way through the semi-final.
Keith put down a marker by pulling away from her rivals over the final 800m to win in 9min 35.77secs.
She’s hoping for cooler weather for tomorrow’s race in which she’ll give her all in a bid to unsettle some of the main medal favourites.
Keith is ranked sixth-fastest, with her best time of 9:19.05 set at Linwood in June. Norway’s Ina Haugen tops the list with 9:11.81, but Keith is less than two secs behind the second-ranked Ilona Mononen (Finland).
Haugen appeared to struggle in her semi-final and only qualified as one of the fastest losers.
Keith said: “My training has been going well and I’ve been running faster than ever, so I feel good.
“I’m glad to get through to the final and, once you are there, anything can happen.
“The biggest factor has been adjusting to the heat. It has been over 30C this week, but it’s meant to be cooler on Saturday.
“We arrived on Monday so we’ve had a bit of time to adjust, but I was stuck in my hotel room for the first 24 hours until we got our Covid tests back.
“There’s not much shelter at the track, but we were able to find a tree and set up camp under that to get some shade.
