Laura Muir insisted she got her race tactics right after agonisingly failing to win a World Athletics Championship bronze medal in London last night.
The 24-year-old Glasgow University veterinary student dictated the pace of the 1,500m for the first two laps but then had to play catch-up. She was pipped on the line for bronze by Caster Semenya of South Africa with the gold going to Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon in 4min 02.59sec. The silver went to American Jenny Simpson in 4.02.76.
“It’s sport isn’t it?” said Muir at the end of an epic race which seemed to rest between Kipyegon and Holland’s Sifan Hassan coming down the home straight. “I gave it everything I could. The last few metres I tied up and before I knew it they went past me.
“It was so close. I wasn’t able to react because physically I was tired. I came so close to getting a medal.”
Muir lost a month’s training in June because of a stress fracture in her foot, and she admitted that had been a factor in her tiredness at the end. She dictated the first two laps from the front, and denied that it had been a mistake to run the second in a slow 71 seconds.
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“I knew I had to take it out at a good pace, but then ease off in the second lap and make sure I didn’t use too much energy,” she said. “I did it perfectly.
“I executed the race plan like I wanted to — it was just these final few metres. I’m happy with the way I ran the race.
“I was fifth [at the world championships] last time, fourth this time — hopefully it will be third time lucky.”
Muir, who has a second chance of a medal in the 5,000m, went to the front almost at the start but having slowed the pace down was joined by Kipyegon, who won their semi-final, at the start of the third lap. She and Hassan, who had run the three fastest times in the world this year, then took over and at one point Muir was boxed on the inside and her chances looked to have disappeared.
Instead, she came round the outside, upped her pace, and was clear third coming down the straight. A bronze looked certain, even when she was overtaken on the inside by Simpson near the line because Hassan completely tied up — but with inches left Semenya burst through on her outside to deny the Scot, who finished in 4.02.97, a first world championship medal.
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Earlier the British team captain, Eilidh Doyle, safely navigated her 400m hurdles heat, finishing third with plenty to spare in a time of 55.49.