North-east sprinter Kathryn Christie has pushed herself closer to earning a place on the Scotland team for this summer’s Glasgow Commonwealth Games following an outstanding series of performances at the Loughborough international meeting.
The Banchory Stonehaven AC runner is best known as a 100m and 200m specialist but she stepped up to run an outstanding last leg for the Scotland relay team which set a Commonwealth qualifying standard of 3min 35.89sec at the Paula Radcliffe stadium.
Christie was joined in the Scotland side by Olympian Eilidh Child, Maria Thomas and Kirsten MacAslan.
She also edged closer to a Commonwealth Games 200m qualifying time by recording a personal best 23.71sec when finishing fourth in the top-class race won by England’s Jodie Williams in 23.03.
Christie’s time, the fastest time by a Scot this year, is just .016sec outside the standard required for selection for Glasgow, although she would have to achieve it on two occasions.
The North-East Scotland College student also set a lifetime best of 11.74 to take sixth position in the 100m won by Dina Asher-Smith (GB Juniors) in 11.20. The Commonwealth qualifying standard in this event is 11.45.
Zoey Clark also showed impressive form when smashing the Aberdeen AAC senior women’s 400m record.
The 19-year-old Aberdeen University student, representing the British students team, recorded 53.76sec when finishing sixth. England’s Kelly Massey won in 52.29 from Scotland’s Child, who clocked 52.40.
Kirsty Law (Inverness Harriers) was second in the discus with a throw of 55.42m and her clubmate Rachael Mackenzie, competing as a guest, was fifth in the high jump with a clearance of 1.78m.
Burghead’s Mark Dry, who was picked for the Commonwealth team last year, threw 71.47 for second position in the hammer and Aberdeen AAC’s Chuxx Onyia cleared 15.07m for fourth in the triple jump.
Turriff’s Lisa Ferguson, who has returned from a spell of warm weather training in Florida, was seventh in the long jump with a best effort of 5.94.
Aberdeen’s Kelsey Stewart was fifth in her guest 400m race, clocking 55.83 behind winner Laiviai Nielsen (Enfield and Haringey), who clocked 53.86. The Stonehaven athlete also joined up with Clark, Diane Ramsay and Lynsey Sharp in a Scotland B team which finished fourth in the 4x400m relay in 3:40.19.
Aberdeen’s Stephen Dunlop clocked 10.86sec for fifth position in his guest 100m race won by Andre Wright (Medway and Maidstone) in 10.75.
England won the match with 189 points with Loughborough Students second (142), Great Britain Juniors third (137) and Scotland fourth (128).