Central AC’s Briagha Cook was on great form at the Scottish National Indoor championships at the Emirates Arena on Sunday. The 17-year-old from Balfron set a new club record in the 60 Metres Hurdles as she finished seventh in the Senior Women’s event. Briagha had previously won national titles in her younger years before a foot injury put her out of action for two years. She finally got back into competition last summer and marked her return with a silver at the Scottish Under-17 championships. Now competing in the Under-20 age group, she has had to master the full senior hurdles height and made a tentative start at the national open a week earlier when she ran a respectable 9.34 seconds to go second on the club all-time list.
This week she was taking on the top senior women in Scotland and had no idea how it would go. She opened well with a personal best 9.22s and was delighted to realise she had reached the final. When the final came she ran even faster to take seventh place in a time of 9.15s. It came as a pleasant surprise when she realised she had broken the club senior record. She was really pleased to set a personal best in each race and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of her first senior championships. Her next target will be the Scottish Under-20 championships and with her currently ranked third she will be looking to get on the podium at this event.
Ian Horsburgh was returning to indoor action after a superb win in the prestigious New Year Sprint event. The European Masters silver medallist was showing the younger athletes he was still a capable sprinter. He eased through his 200 Metres heat in 22.54s then ran 22.61s for third place in his semi-final. This put him joint sixth place but with only six lanes available, after further scrutiny, he was dropped to seventh place meaning he unfortunately missed the final by less than a hundredth of a second. Also competing in the 200 Metres was Kieran Halliday who was happy with a season’s best of 24.05s.