Glasgow Puts On A Show

Plenty of moments to savour as the stars come out for müller indoor grand prix

- Euan Crumley

Oh the weather outside was frightful as Storm Dennis made its presence firmly felt, but some of the athletics inside the Emirates Arena really was delightful as the Müller Indoor Grand Prix unfolded in Glasgow.

It takes something special to produce the kind of roar which is usually only reserved for the likes of local hero Laura Muir in these parts, and Mondo Duplantis conjoured the extraordinary for the second time in seven days when breaking his own pole vault world record by a single centimetre with his clearance of 6.18m.

Jemma Reekie has spent February rewriting middle distance history, too, and the young Scot provided further evidence that hers is a real talent to be reckoned with, given the searingly quick finishing kick which brought her victory over 1500m.

The plan had been for her training partner Muir to raise the roof with another world record – the indoor 1000m – in the final race of the day but though she came up short of Maria Mutola’s mark it was a commanding win for the quadruple European indoor champion who has endured a winter heavily disrupted by injury and was taking great satisfaction from a solid return to the track.

Perhaps the widest smile of the day, however, belonged to Jessie Knight.

The primary schoolteacher who balances work and training, got full marks after smashing her personal best and coming top of a high-quality class in the 400m. The athlete whose speciality is the hurdles wore an expression of delight mixed with utter disbelief after she crossed the finish line and would no doubt have had plenty of questions to answer upon her return to class.

With sprint stars such as ShellyAnn Fraser-Pryce and Ronnie Baker also on show, plus the likes of Andy Pozzi maintaining his unbeaten start to the year, though the Emirates Arena crowd would have hated to go back out in the storm, all the way home they were warm.